


love taught me to lie (and life taught me to die)

by echoes_of_realities



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/F, Healing, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Past Child Abuse, Redemption, Season 5 Spoilers, Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)'s A+ Parenting, Trauma, at least for the first chapter, implied suicidal ideation, she gets to start healing come the second chapter I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24393628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoes_of_realities/pseuds/echoes_of_realities
Summary: But then Adora leaves and Catra shatters. Adora finds new friends and replaces her in the blink of an eye, and that betrayal stings the worst because it doesn’t even take Adora a second thought to leave everything she’s ever known behind.To leaveherbehind.But she survives, because that’s all she knows how to do.She claws her way out of death’s jaws more times than she can count, crawls back to the surface even when she’s the one throwing herself off the cliff, lets herself become the villain that Rebellion thinks she is because she doesn’t know how to be anything else, loses herself to bitterness and anger and darkness because it’s all she has left.Leaving the Horde isn’t an option when she has nowhere else to go, so she becomes sharper and meaner and harder until she’s nothing more than the cutting edge of the Horde’s blade.Or: A Catra character study.
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 53
Kudos: 268





	1. the descent

**Author's Note:**

> Listen She-Ra is the Only thing I’ve been thinking about since season 5 was released, and it’s finally broken the nearly 5 month long writer’s block I’ve had (which means I'm pretty rusty tbh). So I wanted to do a character study on Catra because I find her so complex and fascinating, and before I possibly write anything else I really wanted to get a handle on her character now that her character arc is complete. So have this attempt at that lol
> 
> Chapter 1 covers season 1 to season 4, while chapter 2 and 3 will cover season 5.
> 
> Title and excerpts from “Cannonball” by Damien Rice.
> 
> Cross posted to ff.net
> 
> Tw for implied/referenced past child abuse, implied/referenced torture, and suicidal ideation (especially for the last quarter of the chapter 1 where it focuses on season 4). Nothing is graphic, but it is definitely mentioned/discussed a lot.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But then Adora leaves and Catra shatters. Adora finds new friends and replaces her in the blink of an eye, and that betrayal stings the worst because it doesn’t even take Adora a second thought to leave everything she’s ever known behind.
> 
> To leave her behind.
> 
> But she survives, because that’s all she knows how to do.
> 
> She claws her way out of death’s jaws more times than she can count, crawls back to the surface even when she’s the one throwing herself off the cliff, lets herself become the villain that Rebellion thinks she is because she doesn’t know how to be anything else, loses herself to bitterness and anger and darkness because it’s all she has left.
> 
> Leaving the Horde isn’t an option when she has nowhere else to go, so she becomes sharper and meaner and harder until she’s nothing more than the cutting edge of the Horde’s blade.

_stones taught me to fly_

_love taught me to lie_

_and life taught me to die_

_so it’s not hard to fall_

_when you float like a cannonball_

* * *

Catra was so young that she can’t even remember the first time that Shadow Weaver electrocuted her, which probably says something about how fucked up Shadow Weaver was—and the fact that Catra still craves her affection and love probably says something about herself, but she’s not dumb enough to give into those thoughts. 

She tries not to think of her childhood much, because that sharp stabbing pain under her sternum isn’t useful and, even if she’s nothing else, at the very least she’s useful.

Or, she tries to be—more often than not she just keeps failing.

She must just have shitty taste in mentors and friends, because no matter who she seeks approval from, they always seem to find someone better—someone stronger, someone tougher, someone more obedient, someone smarter, someone kinder.

They always find someone’s who’s just _more_ than her.

Shadow Weaver has Adora, who is everything Catra knows she could never be, and yet Catra continues to throw herself at the masked woman in the hopes that someday Shadow Weaver will see her worth, just once; Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio all have each other in their weird camaraderie that Catra knew she never had a hope of hell in getting accepted into; Hordak had Entrapta, a _princess_ who isn’t even loyal to the Horde, to let in on his secrets and plans and pushed Catra to the side just like everyone else; Scorpia has the Rebellion after she defects, where her hugs are easily accepted and where her eager kindness won’t get punished; and the Horde has countless other soldiers ready to step into her place without so much as a hint of hesitation.

But the one that hurts the most, the one that leaves the taste of betrayal burning in her mouth months and years after that first sting, is Adora—the _one_ person she never feared would leave her for something better. Catra’s always known she was too wild and sharp for the other cadets, she knows that they only tolerated her because of Adora, she knows that their superiors always saw her as lazy and disrespectful and would never see her as ambitious or worthy of leadership, she knows that setting out to try and prove them wrong only makes them dismiss her more when she continuously fails, and she knows that Shadow Weaver will never look at her with the same pride she gives Adora freely.

She knows that Adora is the only one who will ever accept her, rough edges and sharp smiles and all.

But then Adora leaves and Catra shatters. Adora finds new friends and replaces her in the blink of an eye, and that betrayal stings the worst because it doesn’t even take Adora a full day or a second thought to leave everything she’s ever known behind.

To leave _her_ behind.

She thought she knew despair growing up with Shadow Weaver’s torture and under the Horde’s uncaring eye, but she didn’t realize how much light and love and laughter Adora brought to her life until she was so suddenly gone from it.

But she survives, because that’s all she knows how to do. 

She claws her way out of death’s jaws more times than she can count, crawls back to the surface even when she’s the one throwing herself off the cliff, fights to become stronger and more powerful than anyone else in the Horde so no one can hurt her again, snarls at people and pushes them away until they eventually leave her just to prove her fears of abandonment are well founded, lets herself become the villain that Rebellion thinks she is because she doesn’t know how to be anything else, loses herself to bitterness and anger and darkness because it’s all she has left.

She lets herself get used and molded into a useful weapon for the Horde because she doesn’t have any other options. She’s tolerated by the Horde so long as she has something useful to offer Hordak, until he finds something stronger or smarter or more ruthless and then she’s nothing again—even Adora’s friendship had an expiry date on it as soon as Adora found something better. 

Adora left _her_ for people she’s known for a couple hours, like the years of friendship and protection and laughter meant nothing to her.

Like their promises meant nothing to her. 

Leaving the Horde isn’t an option when she has nowhere else to go—not when joining Adora isn’t an option anymore, not after Adora tossed her away like everybody else in Catra’s life has—so she becomes sharper and meaner and harder until she’s nothing more than the cutting edge of the Horde’s blade.

But the thing about being hard is that you can only be hard for so long, and the harder you become the more pieces you shatter into when you inevitably break.

* * *

Catra’s covered in scars, but everyone in the Horde is, so she never thinks much of it, not until she notices Adora’s comparatively unblemished skin. 

The Horde has communal showers, and catching glimpses of each other in the bathroom wasn’t weird or sexual; it was just their normal as orphaned cadets in the Horde—none of them, not Lonnie or Kyle or Rogelio or Adora or Catra, remember anything other than growing up in their shared bunk quarters in the Horde.

It’s not until Catra and Adora are sixteen that Catra starts to notice Adora in ways she hadn’t before. Like how bright her eyes are, or how soft her lips look, or how her arms flex when swinging her quarterstaff, or how pretty her laugh is, or how warm and soft she looks when half-asleep, or the slope of her shoulders when shrugging her jacket off. Catra doesn’t know what it means, but it makes something deep in her stomach twist almost painfully and she doesn’t think she likes it, so she tries to push Adora away. When that doesn’t work, because Adora is too damn stubborn for her own good, she reluctantly accepts the weird clenching as just something that happens around Adora now—another normal to get used to.

And with the acceptance of this new normal, Catra allows herself to stare at Adora when Adora’s not looking at Catra, at night and during training and throughout their free time and when sparring and while they eat and in the early morning before anyone else is awake and, only once or twice, when they’re the only two in the showers.

It’s not that Catra is trying to invade Adora’s privacy, it’s just that they never really had any concept of _privacy_ between the two of them in the first place. She just can’t help how her eyes stray to the other side of the showers even when she does things to distract herself like imagining a vengeful Octavia bursting in on them or resolutely going over their tasks for their next stimulation exercise.

She tells herself not to look, but Catra’s never been good at following orders, even when they’re her own.

Adora’s back is pale and smooth, with only one pink scar along her left shoulder blade where Octavia landed a lucky blow when they were kids, visible only when Adora’s starts shampooing her hair. The clenching thing in Catra’s stomach that usually starts up when she sneaks a glimpse of Adora never comes.

Instead something thick and bitter catches in her throat and she lifts a trembling hand to the network of scars running over her own chest, originating just to the left of her sternum and spiderwebbing out like lightning fracturing the sky. The collection of scars crawling along her chest prickle painfully with the buzz of electricity even if she knows the ache is just a ghost of memory—they remind her of those damn shadow tendrils that are so good at trapping her in place when Shadow Weaver is stalking up behind her. They’re a permanent reminder of Shadow Weaver’s favouritism, of the fact that, no matter what Catra does, she’ll never make Shadow Weaver stroke her hair with the same fondness that Adora always receives without even trying. 

Catra bites her lip so hard her canines catch and draw blood, and the sharp tang of it is enough to force herself back into reality, for her to drop her hand and finish showering and dress and flee the bathroom before Adora can even shut her water off.

Catra doesn’t sneak glances at Adora after that.

* * *

Catra tries desperately not to, but she misses Adora like she’s lost a limb. Being at Adora’s side is second nature to her. They’ve known each other since before they could talk, and as much as she tries to hide it with bitterness and anger, she doesn’t know how to exist without Adora beside her. She can’t count the number of times she’s turned to make a snarky comment to Adora only to find empty space, how many times she’s snuck out of her bunk to curl up at the foot of Adora’s only to find a cold mattress, how many times she’s dodged a simulation blow and expected Adora to jump in and parry it after, how many times she’s saved some of her grey ration bar for a midnight snack to share with Adora only to remember there won’t be anymore sleepovers, how many times she’s thought of something funny and tucked it away in her mind to tell Adora later only to realize there is no later, that there is no Adora to tell it to.

There’s not a single memory that Catra has that doesn’t involve Adora, or that she hasn’t told Adora about—Adora’s a part of her as much as her legs or arms or tail are.

And every time she remembers that there’s nothing more than empty space and bitter memories left, she feels her heart harden just a bit more.

It’s stupid how easy it is to fall back into their old banter, how their teasing loses its edge as Light Hope plays their oldest and dearest memories in front of them. 

Which makes it even more painful when Catra’s jarred back to reality. When that old taste of being second best, of never being anyone’s first choice, of being stuck in Adora’s shadow, catches in her throat and starts to choke her. 

So she dons her resentment and spite like a child hiding under their blanket after a nightmare. As much as she wishes things had never changed, that they could go back to the way they were, they can’t—Catra won’t let them.

She’s gotten a taste of what it feels to be the golden child for once, to be the one who gets the praise and the admiration Adora’s always gotten without even trying, and she’s not giving that up. Not for anything.

So she leaves Adora dangling over a dark abyss because she wants Adora’s grip to slip, because she wants to Adora to finally fail, because she wants Adora to feel pain and betrayal, because she wants Adora to be sucked into that void, because she never wants to see Adora again.

She almost manages to convince herself that she believes it.

* * *

She tries to ignore the hitch in her breath when she catches that first glimpse of She-Ra fighting at Bright Moon, obviously alive and well. 

She tries to ignore the relief she feels at seeing that Adora is safe because, even after everything, she still loves her, still wants her to come home so they can go back to the way things used to be—a little part of her hates Adora for that, but mostly she hates herself.

* * *

The first time Hordak uses his atmosphere machine on her, Catra wants to laugh.

It’s not funny—not in the least because no matter how desperately she gasps she can’t seem to draw a single mouthful of oxygen into her lungs. 

No, she wants to laugh because she’s not even surprised that this is happening. After suffering years of Shadow Weaver’s sick ideas of punishment, from days spent in solitary confinement to getting restrained in that red magic until her limbs cramped to feeling the indescribable pain of electricity arcing through her veins to having all sorts of painful new spells tested on her to just simply getting hit and thrown around, this is just another new way that she feels pain. Another normal to get used to.

The black spotting her vision drowns out Hordak’s voice as her lungs scream for oxygen that doesn’t seem to exist anymore, until all that’s left is Catra’s own thoughts echoing around her head and the faint desire to fight and survive.

Her first gasp of air is painful in its suddenness, and she barely manages to keep her cool long enough to escape Hordak’s sanctum and flee, panting and desperately sprinting to the highest perch in the Fright Zone. The air isn’t clean, it never is in the Fright Zone, thick and heavy with smog and oil and gas, but at least it’s not thin and fickle like the air in Hordak’s sanctum.

The second time Hordak uses the atmosphere machine on her, she can’t even bring herself to care—she should have known better than to confide in Scorpia because that creepy fucking winged baby is always lurking around to report everything back to Hordak. 

That brief moment of relief when Scorpia promised they would make things better, _together_ , isn’t worth this.

She’s tired, and it’s just so easy to close her eyes and let her lungs empty for the last time. 

She just doesn’t want to hurt anymore.

* * *

The heat of the Crimson Waste is dry and dusty and the exact opposite of the humidity of the Fright Zone’s machines and polluted air. The dust in the air burns her eyes, the hot sand burns her feet, the sun burns her head, and her lungs burn every time she breathes in too deeply.

Catra thinks she loves it as much as she hates it.

She doesn’t even realize that she’s happy wandering the barren desert with Tongue Lasher’s gang following her until Scorpia points it out, and she realizes that this is the first time she’s laughed, genuinely laughed, since Adora left. It jolts something in her, something fluttering and warm and terrifying, and she doesn’t know what to do with it so she flees.

Checking on Adora is just an excuse to get the wild humming thing that beats against her ribs under control, to squash the naïve, pitiful hope down before she starts daydreaming about stupid things like days filled with happiness and warmth and laughter.

She thinks of accepting Scorpia’s offer the whole walk to the bowels of the ship where Adora is tied up—of leaving the Horde and just staying here in the burning heat of the desert, of ruling a gang who sees her as strong and powerful, of having Scorpia by her side eagerly cheering her on, of having a friend who won’t abandon her at the first chance she gets.

But it’s nothing more than a dream, a beautiful, painful, horrible dream.

* * *

Shadow Weaver’s betrayal shouldn’t surprise her, because the only thing Shadow Weaver’s ever done her whole entire life is cast her to the side like she’s a particularly disgusting piece of brown ration bar stuck to her shoe.

But still, Catra’s chest aches like a gaping hole has ripped open where her heart should be. 

Even after all that Shadow Weaver’s put her though, even after the abuse and the trauma and the torture and the misery, she still _aches_ for approval from the sorceress. 

It’s pathetic, she knows, the way she still craves the ghost of Shadow Weaver’s hand on her head, raised to her in affection instead of violence for once, but she can’t squash down the ugly thing in her stomach howling for approval no matter how hard she tries.

And, she’s now realized, it’s _Adora’s_ fault that all of this has happened—all of the torture Shadow Weaver’s subjected her to, all of Hordak’s harsh punishments, all of the times she’s come in second, all of her failures, all of the pain she’s felt since that damned day in Thaymor.

All of it happened because Adora _left_ her. 

She needs to kill the part of her that cared for Adora if she ever wants to get ahead, if she ever wants to get strong enough that no one will ever make her feel like this again. She needs to harden herself until nothing and no one can breach the walls surrounding her heart. She needs to burn every single bridge so that nobody can reach her. She needs to hurt everyone who’s ever hurt her just so they know what it feels like to be cast aside and forgotten. She needs to make them feel as helpless and worthless as she’s felt her whole life.

She needs to split open her chest and cut out her heart no matter how messy and bloody it will inevitably leave her.

(Looking back on it, years later, she thinks this is the moment she truly lost herself to the darkness.)

* * *

The portal—

Catra doesn’t like thinking about the portal.

* * *

But she does.

Most days she fixates on how Adora left her, _again_. How even in a supposedly perfect world of her own making, Adora still leaves her for something better.

She regrets letting go of the crumbling cliff _only_ because of the corruption that takes over her arm and half of her face, and not because it results in She-Ra’s— _Adora’s_ —cold, hardened, emotionless eyes finally giving up on her like Catra’s always feared she would—like Catra’s pushed her to do, just to prove her own fears right.

(Even if the latter is what ends up haunting her dreams more often than not.)

Her memories of the portal before falling off the cliff are crystal clear and painful, the memories from when the corruption took hold are fuzzy and painful in a different way.

The corruption didn’t hurt nearly as much as she thinks it probably should, even as she feels it slowly starting to consume her, creeping up her neck and across her face, sinking deeper into her mind as she slowly loses any semblance of control.

That’s the scariest part for her, the losing control. She doesn’t think she minds the fiery prickling consuming her, or the agonizing numbness spreading along the inky blankness that drips from her arm, or the fact that the whole right side of her vision is fuzzy and distorted, like Entrapta’s computer when there’s no signal—she’s used to gritting her teeth and continuing on through the physical pain.

But feeling the corruption root in her brain and slowly seep her control from her is the scariest thing in the world to her. Control is something she never had growing up, something that she’s only just had a taste of after being promoted to Hordak’s second-in-command, and it’s not something she’s willing to ever give up.

It’s almost a relief when her body is burned away in the portal, because even if she’s dead, at least she’s not slowly losing her control anymore.

* * *

In the days following the portal, she notices little things about the places the corruption took hold, things that she hopes will go away—but after weeks and months of dealing with them, she realizes it’s just another normal to get used to.

Sometimes the vision in her right eye goes a little fuzzy. Sometimes her whole arm seizes up with twisting, aching cramps that nearly debilitate her. Sometimes she completely loses feeling in the tips of her fingers. Sometimes she nearly has a heart attack when her arm falls asleep after sitting or laying in certain positions too long. 

She figures it’s something to do with her nerves and briefly thinks about asking Entrapta about it, until she remembers that she can’t ask Entrapta anything, not anymore.

* * *

The days that she doesn’t fixate on Adora leaving her in the portal are the days she gets sucked into her regrets, and her faults, and her failures, and how she’d do anything to go back in time and stop herself from pulling that lever. 

But losing herself to those kinds of thoughts is dangerous, and it makes the near constant ache beneath her sternum flare up so unbearably that she nearly falls to her knees, so she does her best to shove those thoughts down and completely ignore them.

The physical pain is easier to deal with anyways.

* * *

The Fright Zone has a celebration when word of Queen Angella’s death reaches them—or as close to a celebration the Horde ever gets. Which means that everyone gets an extra half-hour off during the evening and they break out the grey ration bars, which have gotten scarce in the last few months as all the machines they throw at the rebellion come back sparking and half broken, if they come back at all. 

It means that funding is getting tight, and they’re cutting costs everywhere, but as Hordak’s second in command, Catra doesn’t feel the effects of their lack of money, not like she would have when she was a cadet. She doesn’t feel bad for the current cadets though—she can’t count the number of times that her and Adora and Kyle and Lonnie and Rogelio were only given one ration bar a day because the Horde was “cutting costs” somewhere, and it’s someone else’s turn to suffer instead of hers.

The consistently destroyed bots are more of a genuine problem though. The Rebellion seems to be going through everything they throw at them with disturbing ease, even with how fractured their forces are after the loss of their leader, and Catra knows that they need to do something. 

Except Hordak is still moping around and seemingly satisfied with the decades long stalemate that the Horde and the Rebellion are locked in, not even worried about Horde Prime showing up and seeing his failure. So she brings it up with him again and again, getting increasingly annoyed when Hordak just keeps lamenting that Entrapta would have been able to improve the design again to make the bots stronger, and Catra does her best to bite back a hiss in his presence.

Even when he believes that Entrapta’s betrayed them to the princesses he’s still so fucking fixated on her that it’s getting both irritating and pathetic.

(Like she’s one to talk, considering she still sees those cold blue eyes every time she closes her eyes.)

So she decides to take matters into her own hands—if Hordak is too weak to actually run the Rebellion, she’s going to make sure they don’t fail, make sure that Adora will never, ever win.

* * *

There’s a sick kind of satisfaction in watching She-Ra brought to her knees by electricity, something dark and hungry and hot that she doesn’t have to fake, something that makes her stomach twist in pleasure at seeing the golden child Adora finally feel the pain that Catra has gotten so used to in her life.

The pain that she used to downplay so Adora wouldn’t feel guilty for never feeling Shadow Weaver’s red lightning.

The burning gratification is so strong and so sudden that it almost scares Catra—or it would have scared the Catra from before the portal, the one that still secretly hoped Adora would return to her. 

But now, Catra embraces it, embraces the vicious darkness and sick cruelty—embraces the satisfaction that causing others pain now brings her. 

Embraces her now well-earned title of villain.

* * *

Catra can tell that Shadow Weaver is training Sparkles from the first shot of magic Glimmer throws at her. There’s no obvious sign of it—no dark tinge of inky purple or coiling shadows to tip her off, but Catra just _knows_ somehow.

It’s the certain hum of energy in the air or the way she throws her arms out to cast a spell or the lack of hesitation or the _something_.

She doesn’t know how she knows, just that she _knows_ that Glimmer’s magic has Shadow Weaver’s influence flowing through it.

The electricity that courses through her veins, jumping along her whip from Glimmer’s hands, just confirms her feeling.

Catra’s been electrocuted more times than she can count and, even without the amplification from the Black Garnet, she can feel Shadow Weaver’s cruelty in the lightning that burns through her, can hear Shadow Weaver’s callous laughter as she grits her teeth and braces for the pain and struggles to not scream when it hits her.

The thought of Shadow Weaver having another protégée that’s not _her—_ of Shadow Weaver choosing someone else over her again—burns through her, more painful and agonizing than the electricity could ever be.

* * *

She wins but can’t feel _anything_ , and she wonders if she’s broken. 

She wonders what the point is because, no matter how much power she gets or how many battles she wins, she doesn’t feel happy or proud or satisfied like she thought she would.

There’s just— She’s learning that there’s consequences for cutting her heart out. That caring about nobody guarantees that nobody cares about her in return.

She digs her claws into her palms in the hopes that the pain will startle her heart back into working, in the hopes that it will let her feel something, _anything_ , again.

She’s just left with bloody hands, in more ways than one.

* * *

Scorpia leaves and Catra can’t even blame her. 

It’s what Catra’s been trying to force her to do since the Crimson Waste, which is why the ache underneath her sternum confuses her so much.

She’s spent the past months doing her best to kill any feelings of begrudging fondness that she had harboured for Scorpia before the Crimson Waste, before Shadow Weaver’s betrayal, before she had felt the painful flutter of hope beat against her ribs for the very last time.

The further Catra pushes Scorpia away, the less it will hurt when Scorpia eventually betrays and abandons her, just like everyone else Catra’s ever cared about. She figures if she pushes hard enough Scorpia will eventually get fed up and leave her, just like Catra wants her to, just like she should, just like Catra fears she will.

If she’s being honest with herself, in the safety of her empty room, she felt a little bit like Shadow Weaver when she spat things like _useless_ and _that’s just what you do_ and _the only thing you’ve ever done is get in my way_ at Scorpia, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop. It’s all a means to an end anyways. It’s all to prove that she doesn’t need anybody else to survive, to prove that she’s better than the expectations never placed on her—to prove her own fears of being abandoned are right. 

So she takes all those _lessons_ that Shadow Weaver has taught her throughout the years, the cruelty and the abuse and the manipulation and the callousness, and turns them on anyone who dares to try and get close to her. She lets herself become the monster that everyone thinks she is, lets herself become the monster she used to be scared of, lets herself become the monster she’s always feared she would become.

She was always the disappointment anyways, the one that nobody expected anything from, the one that would never amount to anything, the one that was always everybody’s second choice, the one who would forever be in Adora’s shadow. She was always the one that was too wild and sharp for friendship—why should she try being kind to the world when no one’s ever been kind to her? Why should she try and break out of the cycle of pain and trauma and abuse she’s found herself caught in when it’s just so much easier to lose herself to bitterness and darkness and anger?

So no, she can’t blame Scorpia for leaving, even if it leaves the acidic taste of betrayal that she swore she’d never feel again burning in her mouth.

_You’re a bad friend_.

(She wishes she had been brave enough to leave before Shadow Weaver destroyed her.)

She can’t blame Scorpia for leaving but—

_You’re a bad friend_.

A traitorous part of her mind reminds her that this is the real reason Adora left her.

* * *

Her nightmares get worse. She wakes up in a cold sweat more often than not, gasping and desperately reaching for the comfort of a warm body that hasn’t been there in years.

* * *

Smoke and ash burns in her lungs and stings her mouth the entirety of her fight with Hordak as she’s sprinting through the Fright Zone, clinging to the last shred of her desire to survive with desperate claws. 

Beating Hordak is the one thing that she knows will finally prove her worth, that will finally prove that everybody who ever doubted her or betrayed her was wrong, that will finally show everyone that she’s more than Adora’s shadow.

She bets that even the mighty She-Ra wouldn’t be able to best Hordak, not with how bulky and slow she is in battle. But Catra is quick and clever, and she’s been surviving by skin of her teeth for these past few years, somehow managing to claw herself back from the brink no matter what is thrown at her.

She refuses to lose to Hordak.

Refuses to lose to another person who has chewed her up and spat her out.

Hordak and his stupid laser gun is the last thing standing between Catra and all the power and control she’s been chasing since that day in Thaymor, the last thing standing between Catra and the happiness she so desperately wants.

If she defeats Hordak, she’ll finally be satisfied, she’ll finally be in control, she’ll _finally_ be happy.

* * *

It doesn’t work.

* * *

Catra shouldn’t be surprised by Double Trouble’s betrayal, but it still stings all the same. She knew their relationship was purely transactional, but she couldn’t help but think that there was some fondness between them. There had to have been, because there was laughter and mutual scheming and nicknames—there had to have been _something_ there.

As demonstrated by Double Trouble’s monologue, there evidently _wasn’t_. 

She’s been so angry at the world for so long, so convinced that she was inherently the villain everyone expected her to become, that there was just something in her that made her worthless and evil—something that apparently everyone else in her life could so clearly see. She was so convinced that it was easier to focus on survival than it was than to heal from her pain, that it would hurt less to push everyone away so they couldn’t hurt her when they left, that she could find happiness in power and control like Shadow Weaver and Hordak had before her, that she if she became the cutting edge of the Horde’s weapon someone would _finally_ see her worth.

_But did you ever stop to think they’re not the problem?_

She can’t even find the energy to feel the pain of being right about her inherent worthlessness all along, of being right that she neveractually mattered to anyone.

_It’s you_.

Not to Kyle and Lonnie and Rogelio and their camaraderie.

_It’s you_.

Not to Scorpia and her new Rebellion friends.

_It’s you_.

Not to Hordak and Entrapta and their secrets and plans.

_It’s you._

Not to Shadow Weaver and her golden child.

_It’s you_.

And certainly not to Adora.

_It’s you_.

Adora who has Glimmer and Bow and the Princess Alliance and that dumb horse and all of the people of Etheria who adore her and her ability to turn into She-Ra and save the day with a single swing of her sword.

_It’s you_.

Adora who saw what the Horde was doing to her and did nothing, and who saw what the Horde was doing to the Etherians and immediately took up arms against them—who saw a planet of people that obviously needed help but nothing worth saving in Catra. 

_It’s you_.

And Catra. Who has nobody.

_It’s you—_

* * *

Catra’s whole body aches, but it feels distant somehow, like the pain is somehow disconnected from her body, like its echoing at her down a long corridor, like her mind is floating somewhere above her.

The lava bubbles quietly like a river brook, and Hordak groans in pain under the roof and machine that collapsed on him, but she pays them no mind.

She remains slumped on the floor and stares blankly up at the ruined remains of the Fright Zone. After the initial shock of Double Trouble’s betrayal and _character scene_ wears off, she finds herself unable to even care that the Horde has evidently been destroyed by the Rebellion and Double Trouble’s betrayal, that she failed after all just like everyone said she would.

Hordak yowls something from where he’s still trapped under part of the building, but Catra barely hears him.

The ache that’s been eating at her heart underneath her sternum since Adora first left all that time ago has finally disappeared, but in its place is just a dark abyss of nothing.

She’s not sure what’s worse—the constant ache she had gotten used to as a new normal or the emptiness.

* * *

She thinks the emptiness might be worse, but she can’t find it in her to even care.

* * *

Glimmer raises her glowing staff to Catra, the threat in her voice gloating and loud and triumphant.

Catra can barely find the energy to lift her head. She’s spent her whole life priding herself on being a survivor, on clawing her way out of every single trauma thrown at her without faltering, on desperately working so hard to succeed just to prove everyone wrong—but now she has no clue why she tried so hard when it was always going to end like this, when she was always going to end up defeated and worthless and alone.

Now she knows that here’s no point in surviving when even the highest of victories won’t make her happy.

Now she knows that there’s no point in surviving when she’s just as broken and unloveable as everybody’s always thought she was, like she’s always inherently known she is.

Now she knows that there’s no point in surviving when there’s nothing left for her anymore.

(Death sounds restful, and she could use a rest.)

“What are you waiting for?” she mutters to Glimmer, surrounded by the rubble of her own making and unable to feel anything other than _empty_ , “Do it.”

(Even if she doesn’t deserve it.)


	2. the sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catra doesn’t know what compels her to follow Glimmer.
> 
> She’s curious, she reasons. Glimmer didn’t fuck everything up nearly as much as Catra did—opening a portal that almost tore the fabric of reality apart is pretty hard to top—but she did make a nearly unforgivable mistake in almost firing the heart and destroying Etheria. Glimmer was alone when she found Catra and Hordak in the rubble of the Fright Zone. It was just Glimmer and her regret and her mistakes, and yet she still tried to fix things even though they seemed broken and damaged beyond repair. 
> 
> And, a tiny part of her whispers, if there’s hope for Glimmer to make amends for what she’s done, for the mistakes she’s made, then maybe—
> 
> Catra’s tail bushes out as she digs her claws into her palms to stop that thought in its tracks. If there’s anything she’s learned throughout her life, it’s that hope is dangerous, and if there’s anything she’s learned in the few minutes she’s been aboard Horde Prime’s ship, it’s that hope will kill her up here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’ve decided to make this into a 3 chapter fic and split the chapter covering season 5 into two parts because it's already 10k long and not even half done yet, so!
> 
> This chapter (and the next one) was really fun to write, but also really challenging, especially to try and strike the right balance between Catra’s existential dread/crisis and her suicidal ideation after s4 with her desire to survive and be redeemed (even though she thinks she’s not worth saving at the end of 5x03), so I hope I managed to at least somehow get that to come across here. 
> 
> Also Catra and Glimmer’s tentative friendship on Horde Prime’s ship is so fascinating to me because they are surprisingly similar characters with surprisingly similar abandonment issues—and they really do demonstrate that people are truly a product of their environments. The scenes of young Catra being jealous of Adora spending time with Lonnie echoes so perfectly with Bow and Glimmer during the Princess Prom ep and it’s just *chef’s kiss* 
> 
> But the way they both deal with those abandonment issues contrasts so perfectly because Catra literally has never seen one (1) single healthy coping mechanism in the Horde, while Glimmer was raised knowing her mother loved her unconditionally (despite the times they butt heads like all teenagers do). And because I’m so fascinated by their forming bond and Glimmer mentions that Catra “keeps coming back” to talk with Glimmer, I’m just gonna pretend they had more talks than shown on screen.

_still a little bit of your ghost, your witness_

_still a little bit of your words that I long to hear_

_you step a little closer to me_

_so close that I can’t see what’s going on_

_stones taught me to fly_

_and love taught me lie_

_life taught me to die_

_so it’s not hard to fall_

_when you float like a cannon_

* * *

Catra doesn’t know what compels her to follow Glimmer, and the hardest thing she’s ever done in her life is pick herself up off the ground and limp after her. The emptiness follows her as she trails after Glimmer, but there’s _something_ prickling under her skin, and she wants to chase it. After so long spent trying to convince herself that she wasn’t numb and broken and empty from the weight of her own villainy and worthlessness, she just wants to feel something again. Double Trouble may have practically decimated her will to survive with her _character scene_ , but Catra’s been feeling the emptiness that has now consumed her for months now—probably since that damn portal.

(Probably since even before Adora left, if she’s being really honest with herself.)

So she doesn’t know why she follows Glimmer.

She doesn’t know why she watches Hordak and Glimmer dematerialize right in front of her, why she steps into the green light after them, why she reveals herself to Horde Prime to keep him from killing Glimmer on sight, why she convinces Horde Prime that her and Glimmer will be more useful to him alive, why she tries to buy Etheria more time as if a couple days or weeks will really make any difference, why being on this ship sparks her will to survive again.

She’s curious, she reasons. Glimmer didn’t fuck everything up nearly as much as Catra did—opening a portal that almost tore the fabric of reality apart is pretty hard to top—but she did make a nearly unforgivable mistake in almost firing the heart and destroying Etheria. Glimmer was alone when she found Catra and Hordak in the rubble of the Fright Zone, and it was almost jarring to see her without a couple princesses trailing after her, without Arrow Boy and _her_ following her. It was just Glimmer up there, just Glimmer and her regret and her mistakes, and yet she still tried to mend her mistake, tried to put everything back together again, tried to fix things even though they seemed broken and damaged beyond repair. 

So Catra blames her curiosity, her need to know everything that’s going on for fear of being left out yet again, her desire to hang onto a life that she’s not even sure she wants anymore. Survival is more ingrained habit than anything by this point but maybe—

Catra’s learned that winning and power and control isn’t what she wants, not really—but now she has no clue what she really wants, no clue if she even wants to stick around long enough to figure it out. But it’s either get killed by Horde Prime himself up here in his creepily serene ship drifting through the void of space, or get killed down in the Fright Zone with all the other Etherians, so it’s not like she’s swimming in options right now. At least up here she might have a chance to survive a couple more days than she would down on Etheria, and she’ll take what she can get—besides, if worse comes to worse, she can always just piss Horde Prime off and let him finish the job. 

And, a tiny part of her whispers, if there’s hope for Glimmer to make amends for what she’s done, for the mistakes she’s made, then maybe—

Catra’s tail bushes out as she digs her claws into her palms to stop that thought in its tracks. If there’s anything she’s learned throughout her life, it’s that hope is dangerous, and if there’s anything she’s learned in the few minutes she’s been aboard Horde Prime’s ship, it’s that hope will kill her up here.

* * *

Catra learns very quickly that pissing Horde Prime off is not something she wants to do, even as a last resort. She figured he would just like shoot her with a laser gun like Hordak had tried to do, or release her to the void of space with no breathing tank, or maybe torture her to death if he was feeling particularly sadistic à la Shadow Weaver’s _punishments_.

She doesn’t care for Hordak—in fact, she thinks she kind of hates the bastard even still—but watching him scream in agony as he is electrocuted in the middle of that creepy looking green liquid sparks a small flicker of pity in her. The clones chant around them about _light_ and _suffering_ and Catra realizes that crossing Horde Prime, even to end her life, is not an option. He smiles cruelly at the sight of his _little brother_ ’s suffering, and Catra struggles to swallow around the lump of ice cold terror that has formed in her throat.

She’s very quickly realized that while Hordak was a power-hungry asshole more likely to bitterly lock himself in his sanctum while sending dozens of expendable soldiers to die fighting the Rebellion, there was still some semblance of something not completely evil—something almost human like—in him, evident in the way he cared for Entrapta even after believing her to have betrayed him.

Horde Prime, on the other hand, is a genocidal maniac who both kills indiscriminately and brainwashes people and clones alike for what appears to be the sheer amusement of it—the only thing he wants is absolute control of everything he can possibly conquer, and he has absolutely no value for the life he eradicates in the name of that. 

Hordak was power-hungry because he wanted to return to his brothers, Horde Prime is power-hungry just for the sake of it, just because he _can_ be.

Even when Catra was at her lowest point, when she was so convinced that taking over the Horde would make her happy, she wanted that power not for the sake of having it, but because it would grant her the approval and respect and control she had always craved.

It’s almost sobering, to realize that despite how much she’s fucked up and hurt people and made countless mistakes, even in her darkest moments she hadn’t even caused a fraction of the suffering that Horde Prime has thoughtlessly caused in the past few centuries. 

Even when that dark, hungry thing in her was watching She-Ra brought to her knees by electricity, even when she was pulling the lever to the portal, even when she almost lost herself to the corruption, she was never doing it for the amusement of it.

Even when she became the villain with the blood stained hands that everyone expected her to, that she feared she would become, she’s practically a saint compared to Horde Prime.

As much as Catra truly despises Hordak, there’s a prickling of sympathy thrumming through her as his programming is completely reset and he once again becomes another faceless clone among hundreds.

She decides, right then and there, that she’ll do _anything_ to make sure she never ends up in that green liquid.

* * *

She keeps her thoughts to herself though, and barely takes time to think about it even when she’s completely alone. She’s not convinced Horde Prime can’t already read her mind, and that thought is horrifically terrifying.

She wasn’t completely truthful when dismissing Sparkles’ worries though—this Horde isn’t anything like she’s used to. The Horde she grew up in was cruel and uncaring, but still unmistakably human. Horde Prime’s version of the Horde, surrounded by creepily serene clones and talk of _order_ and _purity_ and _peace_ and _light_ , is so unnatural and artificial and twisted that it makes the hair on the back of Catra’s neck stand on end almost constantly.

* * *

Time passes weirdly in the depths of space. Catra can’t tell whether it’s been days or weeks since they first got here, but her suspicion is that it’s been closer to a month, maybe even two, while Glimmer is convinced it’s only been a week—it’s been a point of contention between the two of them since they first started sitting back-to-back in front of the forcefield.

Catra figures Glimmer is so set on the option with fewer days because she feels guilty about not being on Etheria to fix her mistakes; she never says anything about it, but Glimmer wears her heart on her sleeve even when she’s trying her hardest to remain unreadable. Catra figures it’s been far longer because she’s used to seemingly endless repeats of the same day with little variation, and because her internal clock was always better than any of the other Horde orphans, even if it is hard to tell exactly when the night ends and the day begins with no moons overhead to judge the time.

Their bitter arguments somehow transform into mostly harmless bickering as the days wear on—or hours or weeks or whatever time passes while they’re prisoners on Horde Prime’s ship, Glimmer in the most literal sense of the word and Catra in all but name.

More often than not, Catra finds herself sitting with Glimmer to pass the time, even if it increases the chances of Horde Prime finding out and punishing her every time she visits Sparkles.

But Glimmer was right—she is lonely.

Apparently lonely enough to listen to Glimmer lament her mistakes for what feels like the fortieth time in the past couple days.

“I’m not a therapist,” she growls once she has a chance to get a word in edgewise.

“Light Hope _used_ me,” Glimmer spits, completely ignoring her interruption, “Just like— Just like Shadow Weaver did.”

“Yeah, join the club, Sparkles,” Catra mutters darkly. Glimmer makes a weird gasping noise behind her, wet and choked, and Catra softens, just a little. “Shadow Weaver was good at that,” she concedes, too tired to even try and mask the bitterness in her voice, “at making you feel like if you were just _better_ she would finally give you approval. Or affection. But all she ever does is use and manipulate the people around her.”

There’s a long beat of silence that has the tip of Catra’s tail twitching anxiously. “She really hurt you, huh?” Glimmer asks tentatively.

Catra is silent for a long while, and something complicated and tangled up in her chest releases, just a little bit. It hurts, like barbed wire ripping out of flesh or like picking at a fresh scab, but it also feels kind of good. She thinks of the dark, hungry storm of pain and bitterness and rage she was trapped in when Adora left, of how she was so miserable and in so much agony that she was blinded by her own hurt. Maybe justifiably, considering the torture and abuse that was a part of her everyday life, but still—

“Me and Adora both,” she finally answers, “in different ways.”

It’s the first time she’s allowed herself to speak that name since following Glimmer into that green light, the first time she’s allowed herself to think about her best friend and arch nemesis all rolled into one person, the first time she’s considered exactly how close hate and love truly fall, the first time she’s realized that she can’t keep separating the Adora that she grew up with and loved so deeply and the Adora that took the light and laughter from her life to go play princesses with strangers.

It’s the first time she’s allowed herself to consider the possibility that her and Adora both suffered under Shadow Weaver’s mentorship, the first time she’s considered where exactly Adora’s perfectionism and hero complex and self-sacrificial tendencies originate from—the first time she’s wondered if maybe Adora was in just as much pain as she was, if that’s why she left the Horde.

And if— 

If Adora felt even a fraction of the pain that Catra was in back then, is still in, in so many ways, then how can she blame her for getting out when she had the chance?

Catra’s vision swims, and she can’t tell if it’s from tears or from her old pain from the effects of the corruption acting up, but she knows she has run before anyone sees the emotion in her eyes. So she flees without saying anything—her and Glimmer may be slowly warming up to each other, but there’s no way that Catra is going to allow anyone see her cry.

* * *

To Catra’s surprise, Glimmer actually notices the lightning-like scars covering her back—though she probably shouldn’t really be surprised. After Adora left, she never let anyone get close enough to her to notice them, and before that she had always told Adora they were from the stun batons during training, trying to downplay Shadow Weaver’s abuse even back then.

She knows that the scars run faintly over most of her body, but they’re mostly concentrated on her chest and stomach—Shadow Weaver’s favourite spot to hit her was her torso because, once Catra was immobilized there, she couldn’t flail her limbs without sending unbearable fire coursing through her veins. This is the first time she’s realized they cover her back too, if Glimmer’s horrified gasp is anything to go by.

Catra leaps up and spins around, hissing at the sound, her hair standing on end and her tail lashing behind her. “What?” she snaps, her voice rough with a growl as she takes in Glimmer’s wide eyes and clasped hands.

“Nothing,” Glimmer stammers, “It was— I just thought of something but it’s fine, it’s nothing.”

“I’m not that dumb, Sparkles,” Catra hisses, “ _What_?”

The tense silence stretches between them until Glimmer eventually sighs, her entire body drooping like a flower that’s gone too long without sun or water. “It’s just—” she looks up from her spot where she’s still sitting on the ground, meeting Catra’s eyes for only a second before her gaze darts away. “Your scars.”

Catra tenses even more, baring her canines as she draws herself up to loom over Glimmer even with the forcefield separating them. “What about them?” she challenges in her most menacing voice, something that’s made Glimmer flinch away from her dozens of times before—but this Glimmer is different. She’s harder than she used to be, more guarded and wary. Being a captive of the Horde will do that to you, Catra thinks bitterly, because even when she was finally the one in charge, she was just as trapped as she is now.

“They’re just— Your hair was pulled to the side and— The scars on your back are—”

Catra doesn’t give Glimmer a chance to continue, slamming a hand against the forcefield and giving Glimmer a withering look before sprinting off down the hallway, trying to ignore the pity in Glimmer’s eyes and urge to claw her skin off until her body is wiped clean of the phantom pain echoing through her limbs. She wants to scream, just to do _something_ with the crawling under her skin, but she knows she can’t without alerting Horde Prime (though, a dark part of her mind thinks, he probably already knows everything).

Instead she finds a perch on a vent that runs along the ceiling where the clones won’t notice her and digs her claws into her skin until her blood drips onto the floor, until her limbs cramp and the fur on her tail finally lies flat, until she feels slightly human again.

* * *

Catra returns that very evening—or, at least what seems to be that evening. She doesn’t say anything in greeting, just sits with her back to the forcefield like always, curling in on herself and wrapping her tail around her feet to make herself seem smaller than she is, and to try and bring some small comfort to herself.

She can sense Glimmer’s surprise without even seeing her expression, but Sparkles doesn’t say anything either, just gets up from the bed and crosses the room to sit against the forcefield as well. It’s the closest either of them get to a touch that’s not malicious or violent on this ship, which is pretty sad considering they aren’t even actually touching each other.

The silence is tense and strained, but Glimmer eventually breaks it.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” she murmurs, “I was just surprised, is all.”

Catra scoffs but there’s no real heat to it. “Surprised that I have scars? Grew up in a war-zone, Sparkles, remember?” 

“No, that they’re like that,” she says, and the tip of Catra’s tail barely has time to twitch in self-conscious annoyance before Glimmer presses on. “They’re from being electrocuted, aren’t they?”

“How’d you know?” Catra asks, unable to hide her surprise, mind unwittingly flashing with the hundreds of times her body was rigid with pain in that red lightning. She twists her torso to look at Glimmer, studying the hunch of her shoulders and the heavy weight of her head.

Glimmer doesn’t say anything for long moments, before turning her head to meet Catra’s eyes, something both defensive and vulnerable in them, something more like understanding than the pity Catra thought she saw earlier. “I have them too,” she finally says, reaching up to unclip her cape and pushing the collar of her shirt down to reveal the barely visible spiderweb like lines originating from the nape of her neck and crawling down her shoulders and back, like tiny fingers of remembered agony creeping along her skin.

“Shadow Weaver,” Catra says, too tired to even summon any of her usual vitriol when speaking that name.

Glimmer sighs, bone deep and exhausted, “Yeah.”

They don’t say anything for the rest of the night, but Catra is surprised by how comforting it is to have someone silently understand at least a fraction of her pain.

* * *

Despite the tentative peace her and Sparkles have somehow managed to establish out here in the dark abyss of space, Catra is still prickly and wild and sharp, and Glimmer is still suspicious and resentful and resolute.

There’s a whole lot of space between enemies and friends, and her and Glimmer are pretty determined to explore every inch of it before definitively settling on one or the other.

* * *

Giving Adora up would be so easy—like she told Glimmer, she doesn’t have to _do_ anything, she just has to let Adora come to attempt to rescue Glimmer and Catra will be safe. She won’t get punished or tortured if she just lets Adora come to Horde Prime but—

But the closer that blinking dot tracking the old Etherian ship gets to Horde Prime, the more something deep in her chest throbs for what feels like the first time since before she defeated Hordak, since before Scorpia left, since before the portal, since before she betrayed Entrapta, since before Shadow Weaver betrayed her, since before the Crimson Waste, since before the battle at Bright Moon, since before Light Hope’s simulation.

Since before Adora left.

The closer the ship gets, the more Catra starts to doubt her plan to just let things play out, the more she feels the itch of indecision under her skin, the more she considers doing something incredibly dumb.

* * *

_I’m always going to be your friend_.

* * *

Trying to betray Horde Prime to keep Glimmer alive is probably the stupidest decision she’ll ever make in her entire—probably soon to be _very_ short—life.

But—

Adora cares for Glimmer and, though Catra’s loath to admit it, there’s a tiny, begrudging part of her that’s starting to care for Sparkles too. But the more pressing of the two is that Adora cares for Glimmer, and Catra _knows_ Adora, even if they’ve spent the past few years at each other’s throats and genuinely trying to kill each other. She still knows Adora like the back of her hand, still knows Adora at the very core of her being—she knows what’s left behind when you strip away She-Ra and destiny and that damn sword.

She knows that Adora has a hero complex, and is stubborn to a fault, and is unendingly loyal to her friends.

(Even if it’s not to her, not anymore, not after everything.)

She knows that so long as Glimmer is aboard this ship, Adora will stop at nothing to rescue her, knows that Horde Prime is counting on that fact, knows that—as much she hates to admit it—Etheria still _needs_ She-Ra, even if Etheria probably isn’t going to last much longer.

She knows that, despite everything that’s happened between them—all the pain they’ve caused each other, all the bitter betrayal, all of the times Adora’s left her behind, all the affection Catra’s tried her hardest to destroy, all the secret things left unsaid and all the angry things unfortunately shouted, all of their years of friendship and affection and laughter, and all of the years of grief and regret and heartbreak too—she still loves Adora.

She’s lost herself these past few years, if she even knew herself to begin with. She’s let her abuse and trauma and abandonment twist her into something cruel and vicious and dark, let herself become what she always feared she would become, let herself turn all of her pain and grief outward to try and make someone else hurt as badly as she did, let herself fall so far into the darkness that she lost sight of every promise she had ever made to herself, let herself kill the parts of her that still felt affection and compassion and empathy—and, somehow, through it all, she still loved Adora.

She still _loves_ Adora, and even though she doesn’t even know who she is without her bitterness and anger and resentment, she knows she still loves Adora, even after everything.

And it’s this reason that she knows she cannot allow Adora to come anywhere near Horde Prime. 

She’s spent her whole life believing that she was worthless, that she would amount to nothing, that she would always be second best, that she was so broken that no one would ever be able to truly love her—but she’s starting to realize that in order to break the cycle of pain and abuse she’s caught in she has to be brave, and she has to be earnest, and she has to be vulnerable, and she has to be willing to take the hard path instead of the easy one.

She has to be willing to try.

(It’s something she’s learned from Glimmer while stuck on this ship with her, not that she’d _ever_ admit that to anyone, least of all to Sparkles herself.)

She knows there’s no redemption left for her, has known it since that moment after the portal when those blue eyes that had once been Catra’s salvation in the cruel metal maze they called home had turned steely with disgusted resolve. The last tiny shred of hope that she could come back from everything that was still rattling around in Catra’s empty chest had died in the cold fire and fury burning in Adora’s eyes. 

There’s nothing Catra can say or do fix all the pain she’s caused, nothing she can say or do to earn the forgiveness of the people’s she’s hurt, nothing she can say or do to change what’s already happened. 

The only thing she has left is her past mistakes and all of their well-deserved consequences. 

And this one last sacrifice she can make to guarantee that nobody else suffers like she has, like she will.

She knows it’s still selfish of her—that it’s only her love for Adora that propels her into doing one good thing instead of her realizing it’s the morally right thing to do or whatever, but she can’t bring herself to care. Nothing matters to her except that the only person she still cares for _never_ sets foot on Horde Prime’s ship. 

She’s willing to take the hard path instead of the easy one for once.

She’s willing to try.

* * *

I t’s not the clones overwhelming her that terrifies her, it’s not the fact that she’s probably going to die in the empty void of space all alone, it’s not the fact that nobody’s going to miss her enough to grieve her impending death, it’s not even the fact that she still couldn’t manage to stop herself from being tortured by yet another person bigger and badder than her.

No, what chills her to her bones and makes her heart stop, what makes her veins turn to ice and traitorous tears spring to her eyes, is Horde Prime’s menacing words.

_You will be of use to me yet._

* * *

_Us Etherians are oh so emotional_ , she had spat at Horde Prime, and it’s the first time she’s ever told anyone that she’s Etherian and been proud of the fact.

It’s also the first time she’s ever allowed herself to cry in front of her enemy, unable to do _anything_ to stop the clones from cutting her hair shorter than she’s ever had it in her life, shorter than she’s ever wanted it in her life.

She’s helpless and out of control again, and her tears burn hot and fiery as they flood down her face and drop onto the tufts of hair covering the ground below her.

* * *

She doesn’t remember much of Horde Prime erasing her consciousness and brainwashing her into one of his seemingly endless supply of clones—there’s mostly just flashes of pain and fear and cold. There’s still some part of her brain that seems to be vaguely aware of her actions, or at least is aware that her body exists in a physical sense, but the rest of her mind is blank and buzzing with hundreds of thousands of other’s collectivized thoughts.

When her mind is wiped, every single negative and positive emotion that she’s ever felt disappears with her control, and all that remains is just a blank canvas. Her memories remain intact, but there’s no emotion attached to anything: Adora’s friendship, Shadow Weaver’s abuse, Adora’s betrayal, Scorpia’s eagerness, Entrapta’s ingenuity, Hordak’s torture, Double Trouble’s chaos, all of the betrayal and grief and anger she had decided to turn outward, the warmth of her love for Adora despite everything that she’s done to try and destroy it—every single emotion she’s ever felt, whether happy or sad or angry or betrayed, all of it disappears.

She feels like she did right before the Heart was nearly fired, right when Glimmer found her slumped against the rubble of her own destruction, right when she was barely even a husk of a person, right when she didn’t see a point in fighting to survive anymore—she feels _empty_.

Her memories become nothing more than things that have happened to her, like a historian writing down events from hundreds of years ago, with all of the facts but none of the emotions.

Having control ripped from her mind is excruciating and violating in a way she never could have ever imagined, even after spending her whole life suffering through Shadow Weaver’s particularly painful punishments. The pool of green liquid that wipes her mind burns like fire as she’s thrown into it, even before the actual mind wiping starts.

When the electricity surges through the liquid, so much pain courses through her body that Catra can’t even open her mouth to scream. It feels like every single time Shadow Weaver trapped her in magic and electrocuted her combined, like all those long minutes spent without oxygen in Hordak’s atmosphere machine are piling up, like the corruption from the portal is burning through her body again, like every blow she’s taken as the cutting edge of the Horde’s blade and in the name revenge are landing on her body at once.

It feels like every single sensation of pain she’s ever felt in her life, from the smallest paper cut to the most tortuous of Shadow Weaver’s punishments, is being amplified and multiplied before coursing through her body 

Her last thought before she loses her mind is of Adora, and how at least Catra’s last conscious act of love and sacrifice before her control is ripped from her will keep Adora safe—that even if no one in the universe cares about her, at least the one person she cares about won’t ever be subjected to Horde Prime’s torture.

* * *

Eventually the green liquid stops burning and she’s pulled out to kneel before Horde Prime, and the thousands of thoughts floating through her mind that aren’t hers nearly overwhelm her, until Horde Prime places a heavy hand on her shoulder and all her fear instantly disappears.

There’s pain shooting through her neck, for a brief moment, and then more nothing.

* * *

The buzzing in her mind never quiets, and her body never seems to need rest. She’s not sure how much time passes under the haze of green, but she never feels exhaustion or hunger—she never needs to sleep, never needs to eat, never needs to drink. She never needs to do any of the boring, mundane, necessary actions that have kept her alive for the past twenty or so years. It’s like her all her needs just vanish and she becomes as robotic as the clones she is surrounded with.

It’s almost peaceful, in a way—she was so tired before all of this, so exhausted of being in constant agony, and it’s just so simple to lose herself to the green. So easy to let herself rest for the first time in her life, to let her thoughts and fears and anger and grief just slip away.

* * *

Horde Prime was right—she definitely suffers in the end.

She may not feel grief and anger anymore like Horde Prime tells Adora, but she’s definitely not free of pain, no matter how much the green haze that has settled over her mind insists she doesn’t feel anything anymore. Horde Prime’s hand on the back of her neck doesn’t hurt her, Adora’s punches and kicks don’t hurt her, practically dislocating her shoulder to escape Adora’s hold doesn’t hurt her—but every time his control on her somehow flickers it feels like she’s been plunged into that burning green liquid all over again.

Her first coherent thought after losing herself to the buzz of Horde Prime’s hive mind is of Adora, and how beautiful she is even when terrified and defiant, and then the blooming pain in her neck sucks her back into the emotionless void her mind’s become. 

When Horde Prime squishes into her mind with her, Catra thinks _this is it, this is actually the end_ , because even with the brainwashing and the emotionless hum of the hive mind, she’s still a little bit conscious in there—enough so that Horde Prime can access her memories and her ability to hurt Adora with her words, something she’s regrettably perfected since leaving Adora in Thaymor. 

She knows that there’s no way out of this, not when Horde Prime’s control over every single clone and person in his empire is so completely absolute, not when he can be anywhere and everywhere in the universe that he’s conquered in the past few centuries, not when he’s forcing her body to dangle Adora over a forty foot drop.

When Horde Prime’s complete control over her slips, the pain rushes back in, and it feels like it takes everything in her to even just open her eyes and then—

And then there’s Adora—beautiful, loyal, stubborn, flawed, _idiotic_ Adora—staring at her like she’s come back from the dead. 

Instantly, the fear rushes back in, because saving Glimmer was supposed to keep Adora far, far away from this nightmare of a ship and the fact that Adora is here, and evidently _not_ far, far away from Horde Prime, means she failed and that her sacrifice was in vain and that Adora is going to be chipped next and that—

_You matter to me!_

All of Catra’s protests die on her tongue, and the confused wonder filling her bones drops her defences enough that Horde Prime can slip back in.

Catra fights against Horde Prime’s attempts to regain absolute control over her because Adora is right—when has she ever listened to anyone’s orders? Even if she’s nothing else, she’s a fighter, and she’s a survivor, and the prospect of finally going _home_ , with Adora’s hand in hers, is so beautiful and so close and all she’s ever wanted that she _aches_ with the hope of it.

She fights because somehow, even with the green haze flickering over her vision, all she can see is Adora’s watery smile.

But then Horde Prime squishes back into her head and Catra remembers that this is the real world, not some unrealistic fantasy she’s never let herself truly hope for.

The last, fully coherent thought she has before falling off the platform, when Horde Prime decides he’s done playing with her and remotely destroys the chip and shocks her back into herself, is that she really needs to stop getting electrocuted so often—it’s probably gotta cause some kind of long term damage or something.

There’s one, thrillingly free moment as she tumbles through the air, Horde Prime’s control on her finally fully broken, before she sees the ground rushing up to her too fast. She manages to twist her body and partially break her fall as she hits the ground, and then her mind is blissfully unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have some Thoughts about Catra and Glimmer having Lichtenberg scars from Shadow Weaver—Catra’s more extensive since she was abused by Shadow Weaver for much longer and Glimmer from getting captured in season 1.


	3. the healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to untangle her emotional trauma is incredibly exhausting and so much harder than just getting a magical hug from She-Ra that heals all her injuries.
> 
> The consequences for cutting her heart out are difficult to navigate, and she finds herself stumbling and falling and failing more often than not, and her knees are scabbed and her palms are bleeding from how many times a day she trips over her own guilt and self-reproach, how many times a day she gives into her still lingering anger and bitterness and resentment.
> 
> But every time she falters and considers just giving up because it would be so much easier to just take the familiar path back to the darkness—the one that calls to her like an old friend welcoming her home—she fights against her own fear and guilt and self-loathing to push herself back to her feet and stumble forward.
> 
> And, to her never ending surprise, no matter how many times she falls, there’s more than one set of hands reaching out and helping her back up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Edit: Sorry if you started reading chapter 3 and it got deleted, I was having some issues posting it and had to delete the original one I posted. It should be fixed now though!**
> 
> Somehow this ended up being like 10k even though I thought it would be around 5k like the last two chapters, so..... whoops?
> 
> I really wanted to show that not all of Catra’s progress is necessarily positive, because she goes from one extreme (letting her bitterness and resentment and anger consume her in the first 4 seasons) to another (seemingly just repressing all of her bitterness and resentment and anger in most of season 5 instead of dealing with it) until she starts to find a relatively healthy middle ground.
> 
> Because like Catra swings so delicately between believing she must suffer for her past (i.e., believing there’s nothing left for her on Etheria, deciding to sacrifice herself and not really caring that the consequences will be her probable death, telling Adora that she shouldn’t have come to rescue her because she doesn’t matter, falling back into believing that she doesn’t really matter to Adora because of Shadow Weaver, running away when she thinks Adora is going to leave her again by sacrificing herself, etc.) and actually starting to genuinely heal in healthy ways (i.e., asking Adora to stay with her to remove the chip, apologizing to Entrapta, admitting that she wants to go home, protecting the BFS on Krytis without a second thought, not pushing Melog away when they bond/imprint on her, opening up to Perfuma a little, essentially telling to Shadow Weaver to get fucked, taking the first step to make amends with Scorpia, finally acknowledging how much she loves Adora, etc.).
> 
> Working through abandonment issues when you have no good examples of healthy coping mechanisms is uhhhh incredibly difficult, believe me. I kinda did the opposite of Catra and repressed everything for most of my life only to get really angry and bitter and start lashing out by like age 17-20, before eventually finding a healthy middle ground after going to therapy and learning how to work through my issues in a healthy way, so her emotional journey regarding her abandonment issues really hit close to home for me.
> 
> And also listen……. “Open Hands” by Ingrid Michaelson is a Catra song and I will not be taking criticism at this time, and it’s what I listened to A Lot while writing this chapter especially the part that covers 5x11

_stones taught me to fly_

_love taught me to cry_

_so come on courage_

_teach me to be shy_

_‘cause it’s not hard to fall_

_and I don’t wanna scare her_

_it’s not hard to fall_

_and I don’t wanna lose_

_it’s not hard to grow_

_when you know that you just don’t know_

* * *

When she wakes it’s with a scream caught in her throat, and she thinks she must have awoken into another nightmare. She doesn’t recognize her surroundings, and nearly tumbles out of bed when she tries to scramble to her feet only for her body to seize with pain and exhaustion.

The door to the room slides open and she can barely manage a defensive hiss before there are hands on her shoulders trying to push her back onto the bed. She tries to fight against them, but something in her relaxes at the feeling, at the gentleness she’d almost forgotten existed while trapped on Horde Prime’s ship.

She blinks and her vision clears and there’s wide, worried blue eyes and tangled blonde hair and Catra forgets all about her fear and defensiveness in favour of confusion.

“Adora?” she mumbles, barely daring to hope.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Adora whispers, and her voice is cracked and relieved and watery for some reason, “I’m here.”

“What?” Catra croaks, trying to twist her body to actually take in her surroundings. She yelps in pain when the motion sends spasming pain throughout her body, and then those gentle hands are on her shoulders again, guiding her to lay back on the bed. “What happened? Where are we?”

“It’s okay,” Adora reassures quickly, “You’re safe, okay?”

“I don’t—”

Catra allows herself to be soothed by Adora’s warm hand stroking the hair off her forehead. It’s short, much too short for Catra’s own taste, and the memory of that green liquid and the discomfort in her neck has her shooting upright once again.

“Horde Prime,” she manages to gasp, before doubling over as her body is wracked with agony again. 

“Catra,” Adora says, and the word is strangled and wet, “Just— Just relax, okay? You’re safe from him. I’ll explain everything.”

It takes long minutes before Catra manages catch her breath, before she relaxes enough to be guided back to the bed once again. She closes her eyes and tries to focus on the parts of her body that don’t throb with pain, something she learned growing up in the Horde—though there isn’t much of her body that doesn’t feel like a giant bruise. Her tail seems to be fine, and her left shoulder doesn’t ache too much, and her face is mostly unblemished, but that’s about it. It grounds her, at the very least, and she eventually manages to let the tension bleed from her muscles and relax into the bed, squinting up at Adora, whose face is mere inches from hers, pulled taunt in worry.

“What happened back there?” she asks once she can swallow the pain enough to speak.

Adora chuckles nervously and finally pulls back out of Catra’s space. It makes it easier to breathe, even if Catra kind of misses Adora’s warm breath on her face. “It’s a long story.” 

Catra flexes her hands and grits her teeth at the pain that shoots up her arms at the movement. “Pretty sure I’ve got time,” she deadpans.

Adora takes a deep breath and glances to the side, her brows drawn together in pain and concern. Her face is lightly bruised and her hair hangs dully in messy tangles and her clothes are ripped and torn—and somehow she still looks so achingly beautiful that Catra loses her breath all over again. Catra blames the agony and confusion she’s currently in on allowing these thoughts to fully form, convincing herself she’s in too much pain to try and push them down like she usually would.

Adora launches into an explanation that starts from the moment her and Bow caught Glimmer, and Catra spares a small smile at the thought that Princess Sparkles did manage to make it out safely after all. It’s hard to concentrate on everything Adora says, because Adora’s voice keeps doing that rambling high pitched thing she does when she’s stressed and anxious, but Catra kind of manages to get the gist of everything that’s happened since she transported Glimmer away from Horde Prime’s ship.

The back of her neck twinges with discomfort and sends prickling pain shooting throughout her body when Adora mentions Catra’s creepily peaceful expression the whole time they were fighting, and she resists the urge to reach up and rip that fucking chip out herself. She remains quiet throughout all of Adora’s explanation, up until Adora mentions Catra throwing herself off the platform.

A vague memory of that forty foot drop flashes through her mind, and she can’t help the smirk that tugs at her lips. “I’ve always told you cats land on their feet,” she mumbles sleepily, partially amused and partially self-deprecatingly. 

Adora lets out a choked laugh and shakes her head. “You’re the worst,” she manages to say around her watery smile, and something blooms in Catra’s chest, something that she’s spent the last couple years trying to kill in increasingly violent and desperate ways—she lets it grow this time.

It’s the most alive Catra’s felt in years.

* * *

Despite She-Ra’s healing magic, her body is still plenty bruised and broken even after the chip’s been removed, though not all of it is external. She-Ra healed the worst of her injuries—the broken bones and the internal bleeding and the pierced lungs, but it isn’t just physical injuries that Catra suffers from.

One thing they quickly learn after bringing Catra aboard Mara’s old ship, is that Horde Prime is very definitely not a living, breathing, organic being. With the pretense—weak as it was—to take care of his prisoners gone the moment Catra offered her hand to Glimmer, he never bothered to make sure any of Catra’s basic needs were met after chipping her, like giving her food and water or allowing her to sleep.

The hunger was debilitatingly painful, and the first meal she tried eating sent her stomach into painful cramps that reduced her to tears and had her throwing up all the food she had just consumed. The dehydration was apparently dangerous enough that Entrapta had to slowly and carefully inject fluid right into her veins those first twenty-four hours or so that she was unconscious after being rescued. The exhaustion clings to her even after spending the better part of a week curled up in her dark room sleeping.

It’s no wonder Adora spent most of her time pacing in the hallway outside of Catra’s door, even after Catra was awake and feeling well enough to start putting her bitter defences back up.

(Catra constantly wonders which of her memories are manufactured by the green haze and which ones actually happened, whether Adora’s unwavering _You matter to me!_ was something that she really said or something that Catra dreamed up. Most days she decides it must be the latter, but those nights when Adora sneaks into her room just to watch her sleep, not realizing that Catra is fully awake and staring wide-eyed at the wall, she wonders if those words were real all along.)

Entrapta says that she’s lucky that her dehydration and starvation tolerance is more feline than human, because she somehow managed to last the nearly five days it took them to get to Horde Prime’s ship without consuming any water or food or getting a wink of sleep. 

It still makes her a little uncomfortable to have Entrapta examining her every couple hours, not the least because of what Catra’s done to her. Even after the scientist seemingly accepted her apology without any reservations, Catra still finds herself choked with guilt every time Entrapta wanders into her room to take her vitals and make sure she’s eating and drinking properly. 

But her own guilt and self-reproach isn’t the only thing that makes her uncomfortable—she still has flashes of being connected to the hive mind even with the chip long gone, and she shudders every time she remembers the lack of privacy aboard the ship, how Horde Prime knew every single thing she did, the invasiveness of having a clone pop up every single time she so much as thought about attempting an escape. As harmless as she knows Entrapta checking up on her is, she can’t help that the hair on the back of her neck stands up at the thought of being watched so carefully again.

She tries to force her hair to lie flat, to keep her tail from poofing up, to make sure her ears stay upright—she tries to stay strong even if she’s never felt so weak before.

* * *

_You’ll never have to see me again_ , Adora says, and for some reason it sparks an old, half-buried memory of a particularly bad wound Catra had gotten from one of Shadow Weaver’s punishments.

She had done her best to hide it from Adora, but eventually she was so sickly and pale and feverish that she hadn’t been able to crawl out of bed for their morning drills. It had sent Adora into a panic, which would have been amusing if Catra hadn’t been in so much pain. Adora—surprisingly strong even as scrawny and lanky as she was at age ten—had woken that morning to find Catra unresponsive and had decided, instead of calling a medic, which would have been much easier, to carry Catra all the way to the med bay herself. 

The medic that had treated Catra was a surprisingly kind older woman, especially considering most everyone in the Horde was somewhere on the spectrum of uncaring to cruel. She had tutted over the state of the wound before distracting Adora with the task of holding Catra’s hand while she set about gathering supplies. She didn’t get mad when Catra’s tail had bushed up and her ears had flattened to her head and she had tried to squirm out of the bed—she didn’t even get mad when Catra managed to land a couple scratches on her hand and one lucky bite on her forearm, she had just smiled at the two of them as she started to clean the infection from the wound.

_T’is gonna hurt ‘cause it’s gotta get worse ‘fore it can get better._

Catra’s pretty positive they’ve already hit their worse, which means that she has to believe they can get better now.

She _wants_ to get better now.

She takes Adora’s hand.

* * *

The people she’s spent so long trying to destroy, to Catra’s never-ending shock, make it easier for her to start to relax back into her snarky self again, back into the person she was before she allowed the abuse and torture and abandonment to twist her into something cruel and violent and mean.

She’s starting to feel like herself again, even if she’s not sure she knows who that is anymore.

Though the sight of Wrong Hordak makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end every time she catches a glimpse of him looming behind Entrapta, his dumb enthusiasm somehow manages puts her at ease. He almost reminds her of Scorpia, in a way, with their shared eagerness in everything they do, which makes something both warm and painful flare up in her chest every time the thought crosses her mind. 

Bow is surprisingly accepting of her, and after spending so much time in close quarters with him she wonders if he even knows how to be anything other than friendly and accepting. He even manages to rope her into countless dumb card games that his dads taught him to pass the time as they speed through space, and whenever she goes off on a rant about him cheating every single time she loses he only laughs and re-deals the cards.

Despite everything she’s done to Entrapta, it only takes a scant few hours after her apology for Entrapta to go back to the way things used to be when she was still the Horde’s best inventor. Catra mostly feels awkward and uncomfortable around her, not sure what to do with her hands or expression whenever Entrapta starts rambling to her about whatever newest scientific development she’s made as if nothing bad has happened between them. But it’s comforting all the same, and Catra knows that Entrapta is a more forgiving person than Catra could ever hope to be. 

Glimmer and her still manage to annoy each other more than anyone else, but their teasing insults and sneered _Sparkles_ and _Horde Scum_ have somehow lost their previous spite and transformed into fond bickering. Apparently after exploring all that space between enemies and friends, they managed to finally settle on friendship, and it’s not tentative and wary like it was on the ship, but genuine and steady. They share a bond that neither of them have with anyone else, that neither of them would wish on another, and sometimes it’s comforting to just sit back-to-back in silence with one other, doing their best to fight off the demons that managed to follow them from that damned ship. 

And Adora—

Catra didn’t even think it was possible for her and Adora to ever exist in the same space without trying to kill each other again, not after all that’s happened between them, not after everything that Catra has done to her.

But it’s like—

It’s like nothing has changed and everything has changed all at once, like their friendship is both familiar and foreign. They’ve still got the other memorized like the back of their hand, but there’s so many new things to learn too.

They fall back into each other like no time has passed since they were just dumb kids chasing each other down the hallways, teasing and laughing and falling over each other with no sense of personal space. Except they’re different now—Catra doesn’t let her resentment fester like she used to and Adora doesn’t try and keep the peace between them at all costs. They’ve both grown up in so many ways, and as much as the prospect that Catra doesn’t even know Adora anymore terrifies her to her bones, she knows it’s probably the best thing that could have happened to them.

They grew up together, but Shadow Weaver made sure that they there was always a chasm between them no matter how much they tried to reach across it for the other’s hand—Catra’s finally realized that they had to grow apart for a while before they could grow back together again.

She was incapable of seeing the pain Adora was in because she was so tangled up in her own, but now she’s starting to realize that, just like Catra, Adora couldn’t see how much damage Shadow Weaver was inflicting on Catra was in because she was doing her best to survive her own pain. Adora may not have faced the physical abuse that Catra had survived every time Shadow Weaver got particularly angry or bored, but the emotional manipulation Shadow Weaver called _affection_ has broken Adora in a different way. It wasn’t that Adora saw what Shadow Weaver was doing to Catra and willingly ignore it, that Adora abandoned her because she didn’t see anything worth saving in Catra, it was that Adora was so lost in her own trauma that she couldn’t see Catra’s.

They were both so blinded by their own pain and abuse that they couldn’t see the other’s. And Catra is only now realizing how necessary it was for them to lose one another, to allow themselves to grow separate from each other for the first time in their lives. 

Losing Adora felt like the ground had fallen out from beneath her, like she was drowning in the ocean with no one there to throw her a lifeline—but it also made Catra realize that she could not only meet the low expectations placed on her, but that she could exceed them. She doesn’t think she ever would have tried to climb the Horde ranks if Adora had stayed. And, even though she now knows that power isn’t what she really wanted, it healed something yearning and fearful in her to know that she _could_ do it, that Shadow Weaver was wrong about her all along.

Shadow Weaver was _wrong_ about her, and even though she’s still fighting with her own mind to acknowledge that, the fact is that even Shadow Weaver couldn’t defeat Hordak—and yet, Catra _could_ do it. She even managed to outsmart Horde Prime himself and, even as terribly as that ended, it still sparks a small flicker of pride in her to know that she managed to rescue one of his prisoners right under his nose.

As much as losing Adora hurt, it was a necessary pain; it was something they _both_ needed. Something that allowed them to get to a place where their teasing doesn’t have an edge of hurt to it, where they can have fun without the fear of being caught and punished for it, where they can talk about their issues without resenting the other, where they can simply exist together without the threat of Shadow Weaver trying to tear them apart.

It was something that was necessary to be able to get to a place where they can smile and laugh together without trying to hide their pain from the other.

* * *

Catra genuinely can’t remember the last time she felt a purr rumble within her—can’t remember the last time she was happy enough and relaxed enough and safe enough to let a purr vibrate deep in her chest.

She’ll take the teasing without complaint—well, without any _real_ complaint—because it feels so unbelievably good to not finally be _safe_ that she doesn’t really care about keeping up her indifferent façade.

* * *

The smile that Adora gives Catra after her outburst on Krytis about working on her anger issues is so sweet and so proud and so beautiful that Catra can’t look directly at it without worrying that her heart is about to beat right out of her chest.

The angry alien cat is easier to focus on than her own inability to keep her heart under control, so she turns her attention to calming it instead. She can tell that they are more scared than angry, and that they are just channelling their fear into rage because it’s easier—Catra knows how that feels better than anyone.

So she does for this weird alien cat what she wishes someone had done for her, she carefully offers them her hand and lets them come to her in their own time.

* * *

Even with Melog there to soothe her fear and anxiety, it feels like every time she falls asleep she’s back under Horde Prime’s control, the edges of her vision dancing with hazy green. Adora is almost always there—though sometimes it’s Glimmer and sometimes it’s Entrapta and sometimes it’s even Bow—and she’s holding her down on that platform, mindlessly clawing and slicing through skin and bone until her vision runs red instead of green. Horde Prime’s laughter always echoes around the empty space of the platform, taunting her as he releases his control on her just enough that she can see what she’s done.

She always wakes in a cold sweat with Melog hissing and pacing around the edges of her room, her hair matted to her forehead and her sheets tangled around her body, panting and desperately scrubbing at her hands to try and get the imaginary blood off them. It takes her long minutes of painful sobs before she can calm down enough to breathe properly again—to convince herself that everybody is safe and alive and not covered in their own blood just like they were when they all retired to their rooms to sleep a couple of hours ago.

Eventually, she just gives up on trying to sleep at night and sneaks back out into the control room once everyone else has gone to bed. The silence of space is eerie, but the hum of Darla’s computer and Melog’s soft breathing makes for pretty good company—and it’s nice to just watch the distant stars and planets as they pass them by without worrying about some clone finding her and dragging her away from _restricted areas_.

It gives her lots of time to herself to think, and reflect, and while her thoughts aren’t always good, they’re _hers_ again.

* * *

Adora is the only person on the ship that knows she’s not an early riser, and the only one who is ever suspicious of the fact that Catra is almost always the first one in the control room every morning. But she doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t push the issue, doesn’t try and fix it without knowing the real problem like she would have before she left.

Catra’s not sure if she likes it or not yet.

* * *

The short hair takes some getting used to.

It was the least painful thing to happen to her on that ship, and yet it’s somehow the thing that she thinks about the most. Every single time she reaches up to brush her fingers over the scar on the back of her neck, just to make sure the chip is really, truly gone, she startles at her missing hair. It makes her head feel so much lighter without her mane of hair swinging behind her, and not in a good way—she feels exposed without her hair covering her neck and her back.

Glimmer never mentions the scars, not after that first time on Horde Prime’s ship, but Catra can tell that the others are curious. Unfortunately, they don’t have any spare clothes—she’s lucky that they even had any clothes for her to wear to begin with—and it means that Catra has to make do with the shirt that exposes her back without her hair protecting her anymore. Entrapta seems to want to study the scars, Wrong Hordak asks if she needs a new piece of metal to replace it, Bow never lets his gaze linger for too long, and Adora does her best to pretend she’s not staring at them every time she catches sight of them. 

It makes her skin prickle, and as much as she wants to snap at them to mind their business, she doesn’t. She’ll tell them in her own time, probably, and it eventually becomes easier for her to ignore their questioning looks and for them to not fixate on the scars so much. They never actually ask her questions and she never answers the unspoken ones in their eyes—and it’s _really_ unfamiliar and strange and almost scary to have her boundaries actually respected for once, but it’s also really nice.

* * *

Sometimes Glimmer finds her in the control room at night, when her own nightmares of Horde Prime get to be too much. On those nights, Catra just adjusts her position enough that Glimmer can collapse on the floor behind her and slump against Catra’s back. They never say much on those nights, and never mention them during the day, but it’s comforting for both of them to have someone else who understands the specific despair that bonded them on that ship.

* * *

Trying to untangle her emotional trauma is incredibly exhausting and so much harder than just getting a magical hug from She-Ra that heals all her injuries.

It’s hard to go back after she spent so much time trying to kill the part of her that ached so long and so painfully that she just let the darkness take over because at least it meant she didn’t hurt so much anymore.

It’s hard to allow herself to feel things without wanting to shut down again and just give up because that part of her that hurt so much she turned to violence and anger still aches even when she’s doing everything she can to try and heal it.

It’s hard to remember that destroying the part of her where all the pain and grief and misery originated from also meant she destroyed the part of her where all the light and love and laughter grew.

It’s hard to try and shove her broken, bleeding heart back into her chest after she’s spent so long convincing herself that ripping it out and locking it away would make her finally stop hurting.

(Honestly, she didn’t even realize that her heart still worked anymore.)

But tries to be better, even though she still fails, kind of a lot, and it scares her because she’s pretty sure it means that she’ll never actually become a better person like everyone wants her to be, fears that it means she’ll never fully heal.

The consequences for cutting her heart out are difficult to navigate, and she finds herself stumbling and falling and failing more often than not, and her knees are scabbed and her palms are bleeding from how many times a day she trips over her own guilt and self-reproach, how many times a day she gives into her still lingering anger and bitterness and resentment.

But every time she falters and considers just giving up because it would be so much easier to just take the familiar path back to the darkness—the one that calls to her like an old friend welcoming her home—she fights against her own fear and guilt and self-loathing to push herself back to her feet and stumble forward.

And, to her never ending surprise, no matter how many times she falls, there’s more than one set of hands reaching out and helping her back up.

* * *

Re-entering the atmosphere is so much more painful than getting beamed up to Horde Prime’s ship in that weird green light. But the hand in hers is warm and grounding, and it’s not until she finally opens her eyes to take in Etheria for the first time in so long that she realizes it’s Adora’s hand that is grounding her. She’s not sure who grabbed whose hand, but it makes something painful lurch in her chest and she rips her hand out of Adora’s grip before she can think too hard about it.

Nobody notices, too caught up in staring at Etheria’s colourful sky and blooming forests and bright moons after spending so long staring at the black void that is space.

Her fingers still tingle long after Adora’s hand has left hers, and she can’t tell if it’s from Adora’s touch or the still lingering effects of the corruption acting up.

She decides on the latter, because it’s easier to deal with right now—Etheria needs them to not get distracted by stupid things like how Adora’s smile makes her heart race and calm at the same time. She’ll have time to figure stuff like that out later.

* * *

(If she’s being honest with herself, she doesn’t think she will have time to figure stuff like that out later, that any of them will, but she keeps those fears to herself.)

* * *

Though, it is hard to lose herself in negative thoughts and her usual pessimism with Glimmer and Bow’s overexcited arms wrapped around her. And as much as she acts like she hates it, their warmth is so foreign and so comforting that she kind of doesn’t want them to let her go.

* * *

She feels like she’s a completely different person now than when she left Etheria. She’s definitely not a better person or fully healed, not completely, but she’s also definitely not at her lowest point like she was when she limped after Glimmer in the ruins of the Fright Zone what feels like a lifetime ago. She feels things again— _allows_ herself to feel things again—and while the ache under her sternum is still there, it’s not unbearable or all consuming. But she’s also still fighting her own anger and bitterness and resentment, still struggling to take the hard path and apologize, still struggling to not let her fear and pain turn her cruel and violent like she’s allowed it to for years.

And she still fails, kind of a lot. 

It scares her because she’s pretty sure it means that she’ll never actually become a better person like everyone wants her to be, fears that it means she’ll never fully heal.

_How are we supposed to fight our own friends?_ Adora asks, and she sounds so sad and so broken and so worried that something in Catra snaps, something dark and hungry and bitter rises to the surface and she can’t force it back down like she’s been trying so hard to do since Entrapta removed the chip in her neck.

She scoffs and can’t help the resentment that colours her voice.

_It never stopped you before._

The wind picks up around them and, thankfully, no one has time to respond to her comment before they have to brace themselves for battle once again. But her outburst sticks in her own mind and refuses to let go of her.

Even after doing everything she can think of to work on her resentment and her bitterness and her anger issues, it feels like she’s getting nowhere. If anything, it feels like she takes three steps back for every outburst that she can’t bite back, which is frustrating and annoying and she knows she’s letting everyone down—except she doesn’t really care.

The problem is that she doesn’t actually regret her comment, she doesn’t feel bad for saying it because she means it; and that terrifies her because no matter how hard she _tries_ to be a good person, deep down she knows that she just isn’t. 

She doesn’t want to save Etheria for Etheria’s sake, she doesn’t want to make sure all the citizens are safely un-chipped, she doesn’t feel bad that they’re fighting the other princess, she doesn’t really care that Horde Prime is almost certainly going to conquer Etheria like he has every other plant he’s come across.

She wants to save Etheria because it will keep Adora alive—she doesn’t really care about saving Etheria itself. She just cares that Adora lives through this, that Glimmer and Bow and Entrapta and Scorpia and even Wrong Hordak make it through everything in one piece, that the other princesses and even that dumb horse all manage to survive the apocalypse because she knows Adora cares about them too.

But she doesn’t want to save Etheria because it’s the morally right thing to do, she wants to save Etheria because it will make sure that the people she cares about are safe. And she can’t find it in herself to be apologetic about that, because she has no reservations about her own selfishness. 

She figures that there will come a day that she’ll do things because they’re _good_ and not because she’ll get something out of it. 

She figures that eventually she will become a good person.

(She fears she never will.)

* * *

Catra’s always known that she’s had a pretty messed up childhood—growing up as a child soldier in the Horde will do that to you—and with all the manipulation and torture and abuse she’s suffered, and with Horde Prime’s violent takeover of her mind, she’s pretty sure that the nightmares are never going to go away.

Every time she closes her eyes, it feels like Horde Prime is right there waiting to slip back into her mind again, and it makes it near impossible to sleep at night when she’s all alone in the dark. Instead, she’s taken to patrolling around the Rebellion’s new hideout while everyone else sleeps. Melog is as silent as she is, so they don’t disturb anyone so long as they keep to the shadows when they pace around the perimeter of the cave. Sometimes, when she’s feeling particularly restless, she even takes solace in the quiet hum of the forest outside.

She allows herself to nap when everyone else is awake, finding whatever high perch she can curl up in that’s close enough to overhear everyone’s conversations but far enough out of sight that no one really notices her—no one except Adora and Glimmer and Bow, who had all gotten used to her weird sleeping habits while they were on Mara’s ship.

Bow insists on calling them catnaps, to Catra’s never ending annoyance, and Adora has to remind her every time he does that _no, you can’t suffocate him with a pillow, not even a little bit_.

She’s still unsure around him, because he’s one of the few people she’s starting to warm up to who she doesn’t have a history with, no childhood memories or traumatic imprisonment or time spent researching for the Horde to fall back on—which means she has no clue how to act around him. Every time they’re alone together, Catra can feel the awkwardness scratching under her skin, and it generally results in her falling back on her old defensive habits, even though she’s doing her best to break them.

Which is why it surprises her that Bow is the first person to notice that she’s been spending most of her nights perched in a tree outside, and it surprises her even more when he easily finds the tree she’s hiding out in.

“What do you want?” she grumbles as soon as he’s in earshot. Melog,perched somewhere above her, raises their head and ripples with unease.

Bow startles a little before tipping his head back and giving her a bright smile, so wide that Catra can see it even though she’s about twenty feet in the air. “I figured I’d find you out here. D’you need the fire brigade to get you down?” he calls teasingly.

Catra curls tighter into herself and presses closer to the tree trunk. The branch she’s perched on sways with her weight, and she digs her claws in to hold herself steady. “Fuck off,” she snarls, and though Melog remains blue, their mane and tail goes jagged. 

Bow softens and takes a step closer to the tree. “I was just teasing. Are you okay?” he asks tentatively.

“Why do you care?” she snaps back.

“Because you’re part of the Best Friends Squad now, and I always care about what’s going on with my friends,” he answers easily, and Catra just _knows_ that he’s being genuine, and it sparks something cruel in her.

He’s too earnest, too caring, too friendly, and a dark, hungry part of herself that Catra keeps trying her best to bury wants to crush his kindness, wants to tear his warm affection apart. She scoffs instead, curling further up into the shadows of the tree, afraid that she’ll say something she might regret if she opens her mouth. “We’re not friends,” she finally mutters once she thinks she has a handle on that dark, hungry part of her.

“Not with that attitude we’re not,” Bow says cheerfully, and Catra can’t tell if he’s teasing her or being genuine. She decides not to dignify that with a response, and instead just completely ignores Bow as he grunts and groans while trying to scramble up the tree. He eventually settles on a thick branch just below the one Catra is curled up on, resting his arms on Catra’s branch and settling his chin on his forearms. “Come on, I can tell something’s bothering you. I won’t judge—promise. You just seem really—”

“Why are you so nice to me?” Catra demands, leaping to her feet and turning on him so fast that he nearly falls off of his branch at her sudden movement. Her tail lashes behind her as she balances on the swinging branch—Melog hisses and their jagged mane and tail get even sharper as they flash red. “I’ve done terrible things to you. I kidnapped you and attacked you and I’ve destroyed villages and I nearly tore reality apart and—

“You are not your past mistakes,” Bow interrupts, his brow creased. “Sure, you did a lot of bad, but you recognize that the things you did were bad, which is more than some people can say. And you’re changing. I don’t think I should hold those past mistakes against you when you’re trying to fix them, especially when you’re trying to heal from a pretty messed up childhood.” 

Catra tenses and digs her claws into her palms as Melog yowls and paces anxiously above her. 

Bow’s voice drops and he glances away. “I’ve seen some of your scars, and Adora’s told us some stories, and Shadow Weaver—” his gaze hardens and his face darkens with an expression Catra’s never seen on him before, “I’ve met Shadow Weaver, so. I know you made a lot of bad decisions, but I also know you were in a lot of pain when you made them.”

“The stuff that happened to me was fucked up,” Catra concedes bitterly, “but I also did some fucked up things so I guess my pain it’s all relative to that. I did some terrible stuff so the stuff that Shadow Weaver did to me and what happened with Prime is compensation for that. Like karma or whatever. If the other princesses think I should suffer for what I’ve done, then I should.” She pauses to swallow the ball of ice currently lodged in her throat. “I hurt people. Stick around long enough and I’ll end up hurting you too—hurting you again, I mean.” She takes a deep breath and tries to keep her voice steady and resolute despite how her hands shake. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, or their forgiveness, or _hers_. And I don’t deserve love. Not anymore.

“What?” Bow exclaims so suddenly Catra has to dig her claws into the branch so she doesn’t fall off in surprise, “No, that’s not how it works!”

“Maybe it should,” Catra mutters. Melog makes a pitiful mewling sound, shrinking until they’re the size of a house cat, and Catra doesn’t even need to be able to understand their language to know what they mean—she suspects Bow doesn’t need a translation either.

“Catra, just because you did some messed up things doesn’t mean you deserve to suffer, or that you don’t deserve love,” he says, quiet but resolute. Catra scoffs and finally plops back down on the branch, facing away from Bow and doing her best to ignore him—she doesn’t believe him, _can’t_ believe him, and it almost hurts more to hear him say she’s worthy of love than it would if he agreed that she doesn’t deserve it. “Do you regret the things you’ve done?” he continues, “Would you take them back if you could?”

“Yeah, most days. Most days I would do anything to go back in time and change the things I’ve done, the people I hurt,” Catra eventually admits, before turning her face away from the suddenly too bright moonlight so Bow can’t see her expression or the tears stinging her eyes. “Some days I don’t care though. Some days I look back at all the terrible things I’ve done and all the pain I’ve caused and I just— I just don’t care.” Bow sucks in a sharp breath and Catra smirks sadly. “Does that scare you, Arrow Boy?”

He’s silent for a long moment, before contorting his body over the branch Catra is sitting on so he can meet her eyes despite how she tries to hide in the shadows. “No, I don’t think it does.”

“It probably should.” 

They’re both silent for a long time until Melog, still house-cat size, slowly creeps back down the tree and settles in Catra’s lap, nuzzling into her stomach and mewling sadly. It should comfort Catra, but it doesn’t, not really—she runs her fingers through their mane, still marvelling at how the energy it’s made of feels both cool and warm at the same time, because if she doesn’t focus on something mundane she’s going to shatter.

“If you were smart, you’d all run far, far away from me,” she finally whispers.

“Hey,” Bow protests good-naturedly, “no one’s ever accused any of us of being smart before.”

It surprises an amused snort out of her, and Bow looks far too proud of himself for managing to get a laugh, small as it was, out of Catra. He quickly sobers though, and offers her a small smile. “Listen,” he says softly, “I know you probably don’t believe me, but you’re not inherently evil, and you don’t have to work or repent or whatever to be worthy of love.” 

Catra frowns and tries her hardest to not be comforted by his words, but Melog’s jagged mane and tail finally lie fully flat again and their chest rumbles with a nearly silent purr.

“You’re not half bad at this reassuring thing,” she eventually mutters, trying to ignore the way something in her chest unfurls at his delighted smile.

“I _am_ the friendship guy, after all,” he grins.

Catra rolls her eyes, but she can’t bite back her smile when Melog leaves her lap to nuzzle their face against Bow’s cheek.

* * *

She sleeps better after that, and on those nights she can’t, Bow is usually already waiting for her halfway up the very same tree he first found her hiding out in—sometimes to talk, and sometimes to make her laugh, and sometimes to simply make sure she’s not alone, perched on the branch below hers in companionable silence.

* * *

It’s decidedly weird to be back in the Fright Zone with Adora at her side instead of facing her in battle. 

Almost every single one of Catra’s most painful memories are here, and there are dark ghosts waiting for her in every corner of this place to remind her of all of the terrible things that have been done to her,all the terrible things she’s done to others. It makes something in her chest tighten painfully, like barbed wire is digging into her heart. 

But she forces herself to push those old ghosts to the side in favour of teasing Adora, because she knows that she’s still good at making Adora smile, even after spending years making her hurt.

It feels like they’re kids again, laughing and tripping over each other as they race through the metal maze that they grew up in, that they called home for so long because they didn’t know anything else.

She hates that it _still_ feels like home, hates that she can see in Adora’s eyes that she feels the same, but—

Adora’s smile as they catch up with the others, out of breath and happy, makes that painful thing in her chest knock loose.

Almost all of Catra’s regrets and mistakes and worst memories are here, sure, but almost all of her happiest ones are too.

* * *

Catra really hates water, which is something the rest of the Rebellion coos over like it’s just another cute feline quirk, but the feeling of it washing over her body makes her flash back to green and chanting and electricity and—

She swallows the worst of her panic and forces herself to focus on the task at hand. The sooner she gets out of here, the sooner she can dry off, and the sooner she can stop remembering that fucking green liquid.

* * *

Her progress feels like it’s so slow that she’s going backwards, because she still has all this anger and resentment inside her. She doesn’t know what to do with it because she’s never learned how to express negative emotions in a healthy way—whenever Shadow Weaver was angry or upset, she found some poor orphaned cadet (almost always Catra) to punish, and whenever Hordak was angry or upset he just invaded another village. So she’s not exactly swimming in good role models that could teach her how to express her negative emotions in ways that don’t involve trying to take over Etheria. And even if she was, they wouldn’t exactly have time to deal with silly things like Catra’s dumb feelings when the world as they know it is literally about to end. 

So instead, she just stumbles her way through. Midnight talks in the quiet hum of the forest with Bow help, and having Glimmer there to call her on her shit is surprising encouraging, and Melog helps her sort through her emotions when they get to be too much, and just being around Adora again without doing their best to hurt one another does wonders to soothe her anxiety and fear (even if most of that fear stems from the worry that Adora will do something dumb like sacrifice herself for all of Etheria or something equally stupid). 

But she still feels like she spends most of her time trying to fix her past mistakes tripping head over heels down a steep and rocky cliff.

It’s easy to repent—well, not easy, per se, but certainly not the hardest thing she has to do. She can help the Rebellion and try to temper her rough edges and apologize to the people she’s hurt and lend an (mostly willing) ear whenever one of the princess starts ranting about whatever and that’s all not necessarily _easy_ , but it’s doable. 

What feels goddamn impossible—like she’s standing at the bottom of a completely flat cliff face and trying to climb it, like she’s trying to swim up a sixty foot waterfall, like she’s back in Shadow Weaver’s sanctum with magic freezing her in place and electricity coursing through her veins—is trying to forgive herself.

She’s learning that it takes a lot longer to heal than it did to fall to the darkness.

* * *

As quickly as she’s grown to love Melog, it is really annoying to have a creature that’s so completely attuned to her emotions constantly following her around.

She’s an open book now, and she hates that there’s no way for her to keep her emotions to herself, that there’s no way for her to remain aloof and annoyed to mask what she’s really feeling.

Not that she was too good at hiding her emotions before Melog, but at least she could hide her fear and misery and pain with anger and no one would look too closely at her. But with Melog following her around and announcing her true emotions to everyone who even glances their way, there’s no way for her to hide anymore.

It makes her vulnerable, and she hates being vulnerable because it makes it easy for people to take advantage of her. 

It also means that when Shadow Weaver sets her on edge, she can’t hide the fear that sparks in her and turns Melog’s mane and tail spiky and red. It means that she can’t hide the way that Adora’s hand on her shoulder soothes her quicker than else could anything. It means that she can’t pretend that the only place she wants to be is at Adora’s side, even when being at her side means she also has to be in the general vicinity of Shadow Weaver.

It’s terrifying, and it makes her want to run and hide, but she can’t, not for long anyways, so she forces herself to push through the fear and ignore the warning signs her brain keep flashing at her to run far, far away.

The smile that spreads across Adora’s face when Catra reluctantly agrees to go with them all to Mystacor and her bright laughter when Melog jumps on her and fondly licks her face makes it all worth it. 

Change is really uncomfortable, Catra is learning, and healing really fucking hurts, but it’s also kind of rewarding.

* * *

As soon as Shadow Weaver places her hands on Catra, restrains her so she can’t move and covers her mouth so she can’t scream, she flashes back to the hundreds of times that she’s been in this position before—to every single time that Shadow Weaver used magic to wire her jaw shut so she couldn’t plead for help or scream in pain. 

Melog reacts before Catra can even process her own reaction, growling low in their chest as they go jagged and sharp and red, teeth bared as the invisibility magic slips off the whole group. Catra’s skin crawls as she leaps away from Shadow Weaver, not even caring that she just gave away their position.

There’s absolutely no fucking way Catra is letting Shadow Weaver ever lay her hands on her again, mostly because Catra is almost paralyzed with fear of what she would do if Shadow Weaver were to touch her again. She doesn’t know whether she would completely shut down, try to kill Shadow Weaver herself, or break down and start begging for forgiveness for ruining everything _again_. All three thoughts are equally terrifying, and Catra’s not even sure what it says about her that she has absolutely no clue what she would actually do if it came down to it.

She _should_ want Shadow Weaver to pay for everything that she’s done to her, but as fucked up as it is, Catra _still_ wants that affection and approval she’s longed for all these years—she _still_ wants Shadow Weaver to be proud of her, just once.

She still just wants to be worthy of someone’s love.

* * *

She doesn’t even think twice before jumping through the fire after Adora—she can’t lose her again, she refuses to.

* * *

Except, she’s going to, because Adora is beautiful and loyal and stubborn and flawed and _idiotic_. 

She’s going to lose her because Adora doesn’t have any sense of self-preservation, because Adora doesn’t think about herself, because Adora is She-Ra, because Adora doesn’t know the meaning of being selfish, because Adora can’t say _no_ even when she knows that Shadow Weaver is manipulating her, because Adora is stupidly self-sacrificial, becauseAdora doesn’t know how to let other people help her.

She’s going to lose her because Adora would never put her own needs and desires above the greater good. 

She’s going to lose her because Adora doesn’t know how to share her burden of responsibility for Etheria and its people. 

She’s going to lose her because Adora believes that it would be better for her to die than to let anyone else get hurt.

And Catra’s not going to let that happen.

She doesn’t care about a world without Adora in it, doesn’t care that Etheria will be saved if Adora gives up her own life, doesn’t care that Horde Prime will destroy the universe if Adora doesn’t take the failsafe—Catra doesn’t care about any of that.

The only thing she cares about is that Adora and their friends survive this nightmare. So she’ll fight Shadow Weaver even though just being in the same room as her sets her on edge, she’ll fight all of the Rebellion for allowing Adora to sacrifice herself even though she’s on their side now, she’ll fight Horde Prime herself even though the thought of being chipped again is her deepest, darkest fear—she’ll fight anyone and everyone who tries to convince Adora that she’s only worth something if she’s useful, that she’s only useful if she sacrifices herself to fulfill some dumb destiny, that the dumb destiny is her burden to shoulder and her burden alone. 

She’ll even fight Adora herself just to keep her safe, to keep her from killing herself for the sake of people who don’t care about Adora like Catra does, who don’t _love_ Adora like Catra does—and she’s _not_ going to lose this fight, she refuses to.

* * *

Catra loses.

She always does.

* * *

Melog tries to stop her, but Catra ignores them, ignores the fact that Melog is so attuned to her emotions that they know her deepest feelings better than she does. 

Ignores the fact that she wants to stay by Adora’s side no matter what, except—

Except Adora doesn’t want to stay by Catra’s side, she _can’t_ want that if she’s going to go ahead and sacrifice herself and leave Catra all alone, _again_.

Except Adora has too much of a hero complex to allow herself to want things that don’t directly help random people she’s never even met.

Except Adora will let herself die in the name of destiny without any regard for how it will affect the people who love her.

Except Adora will sacrifice herself to save Etheria even though Etheria wouldn’t do the same for her.

Except Adora doesn’t love Catra the way that Catra loves her.

She can’t keep trying to hold onto Adora if Adora isn’t going to try to hold onto her.

It just hurts too much.

So she leaves before Adora can leave her first.

* * *

_Why do you always have to sacrifice everything for everyone else? When do you get to choose? What do you want, Adora?_ is what Catra says, but what she’s really screaming is _Choose me!_

She knows that Adora won’t though, no matter how loud Catra screams. She knows that Adora _can’t_ because she’s still trying to play the hero, even when there are no heroes left to play, not at the end of the world.

It’s what Catra expected—the reason why she tried to sneak away when no one would notice her. She knows no one will miss her once she’s gone, knows no one will mourn her absence, knows no one will go looking for her, knows that no one expects her to become good, knows that no one needs her to save Etheria, knows no one cares about her enough to bring her back home.

She knows she’s always going to be Adora’s second choice.

* * *

It’s easier to leave than to watch Adora sacrifice herself anyways.

* * *

Her chest aches like there’s a hole under her sternum that’s getting bigger the further she gets from Adora, but she ignores it.

* * *

It’s _easier_ this way, she tells herself.

* * *

Hearing Horde Prime’s voice again sends an icy chill crawling along Catra’s spine, and that green haze prickles at the edges of her vision until Melog nuzzles against her hand and brings her back to the present.

And the present is fucking terrifying.

She had no reservations about leaving the Rebellion behind, knowing that she would die an almost certain death at the hands of Horde Prime even if Adora could get the failsafe to the Heart in time, and yet—

_No_ one saw this coming. Even in their wildest speculations, not a single member of the Rebellion suggested that Horde Prime would be able to infect the planet itself and—

The thought of Adora _dying_ all alone in the bowels of an infected planet is somehow so much more terrifying than the thought of Adora sacrificing herself for that planet.

While there was a chance Adora could survive her sacrifice, Catra is pretty sure that virus spreading along the planet will cut that chance down to zero. Because even with all of She-Ra’s strength and magic, She-Ra is still Adora, and Adora is still just human, and humans are still very mortal. And Catra still _knows_ Adora better than she knows herself. She knows what’s left behind when you strip away She-Ra and destiny and that damn sword.

And what’s left behind is a just a girl barely into her second decade who has been thrown into a war she’s far too young to die in, who has had her childhood stolen from her by an abusive sorceress and a cruel army, who has had a destiny she never asked for thrust upon her and the weight of an entire plant placed on her entirely too human shoulders.

What’s left behind is the girl that Catra loves more than she knew was even possible after spending years drowning alone in the darkness.

And while Catra still hasn’t quite figured who she is without her anger and resentment, she _knows_ that she doesn’t want to be the kind of person who abandons the girl she loves the most when things get hard.

She’s not going back to help Adora because it’s the morally right thing to do.

She’s doing it because she loves Adora, and she refuses to apologize for that. She refuses to let anyone to place some sort of arbitrary restrictions on the reasons she’s doing something good—she refuses to let anyone tell her that her love for Adora makes her selfishly motivated.

It’s not going to be easy—both the race to the Heart of Etheria and asking Shadow Weaver for the help she knows she needs to get there. And Catra knows the chances of her dying some gruesome death before she even reaches Adora is more likely than her actually making it all the way to the Heart. She knows that there’s a chance Adora won’t even want to see her after Catra ran away, knows that she’s going to have to fight tooth and nail the entire way there, knows that this is probably going to be the hardest thing she’ll do in her (probably soon to be _very_ short) life.

But then again, love isn’t easy.

It’s making the hard choice.

And it’s so much harder to stay than it is to leave.

She’s willing to take the hard path instead of the easy one.

She’s willing to try.

* * *

When Bow and Glimmer hug her before they go, Catra doesn’t even try to hide the way she sinks into their embrace. They’re warm and unapologetically affectionate, and Catra thinks they’re exactly what she’s needed for so long. She was so dependent on Adora’s friendship and nobody else for so long that she’s only now started to realize how unhealthy her dependance was now that she has a support system that extends beyond one girl who was as traumatized as she was. 

She thinks it’s good for her, to have Bow and Glimmer in her life, even if that life’s probably not going to last as long as she would like it to—but it’s good all the same. As much as she loves Adora, and as much as her support means the world to Catra, it’s nice being able to lean on other people and trust that they won’t let her fall.

She’s starting to realize that, no matter how much it might hurt, it’s better to have had these people in her life for even a short time than it is to have never known their friendship at all.

* * *

Shadow Weaver’s pride doesn’t feel anything like like Catra thought it would, like she had imagined it would.

It feels empty, as empty as Catra now realizes the sorceress’ heart has been all these years. As empty as Shadow Weaver’s affection for Adora actually was—she can see that clearly now, and the tears burning her eyes feel more like relief rather than grief.

Shadow Weaver never loved either of them, she couldn’t because she wasn’t capable of loving anything other than herself, so caught up in her narcissistic quest for more power and more magic that it didn’t leave any room for love or affection.

Adora pulls Catra into a tight hug, their bodies slotting together like they always have, and Catra _knows_ the tears are from relief now.

Even though she doesn’t have time to sort through all her tangled and complicated emotions about Shadow Weaver (fears that she won’t ever have time), she knows now that she doesn’t need Shadow Weaver’s approval to be happy—she never did.

Shadow Weaver may have fucked them up and ruined their childhoods, but she can’t ruin their futures, not anymore.

She can’t ruin the way that Catra loves Adora.

* * *

The Heart of Etheria would be breathtakingly beautiful if it wasn’t so terrifying—if it wasn’t the reason Etheria is falling apart at its seems.

If it wasn’t the reason Adora is about to sacrifice herself.

They take a moment they don’t really have the time for to just stare up in awe at the glowing, twisting thing that floats above them. There’s colours Catra has never seen before, ones that she doesn’t even think humans have names for, and the blinding lights leave dancing white spots behind her eyelids whenever she blinks. It’s somehow something _more_ than anything Catra’s ever seen, like it was made by something more than human—it hurts to look at it for too long.

It’s beautiful, and terrible.

Adora’s shout of pain snaps Catra out of her awe and back into reality.

Back into the nightmare they’ve been living through for the past couple of hours—for their entire lives, really.

Back into the looming apocalypse.

* * *

Adora’s forehead presses to hers and Catra’s breath hitches in the back of her throat and she calms for the first time in what feels like days even as everything collapses around them, even as everything in her is desperately screaming and protesting Adora’s hopeless words.

Of the finality in her voice.

It’s intimate in a way that almost scares Catra, but it also soothes something deep and dark and aching underneath her sternum, something that she didn’t even know was hurting until Adora reached out and calmed it. 

Adora is her best friend even after everything, her first crush when nothing made sense, her first love despite all that Catra did to try and destroy it, her worst enemy throughout her fall to darkness, her most painful heartbreak amidst a lifetime of trauma and abuse, her last thought as she lost her mind, her guiding light out of the grief and pain she had lost herself to—Adora is the one constant in her life, whether as her best friend or her worst enemy or her dearest love or her most painful _maybe_.

But then Adora’s next words cause that aching thing deep in her chest to flare back up, all consuming and painful, and it feels as if Adora is reaching straight into her chest and squeezing her heart until it finally, fully shatters.

_It’s okay. I’m ready_ , Adora says, and the tears pooling in her eyes make them too bright and too shiny and too beautiful.

But _I’m_ not, Catra thinks.

Even if it kills Catra to stay down here, even if she has to watch Adora die, even if it means Catra’s never going to know love this deep and this enduring and this beautiful ever again,she’s going to stay at Adora’s side.

Catra’s not going to let her die alone.

* * *

Adora might be giving everything she has left in her to save everyone else, but someone’s gotta save her too, and Catra is there to catch her when she falls.

* * *

_Adora, please, you have to wake up. You can’t give up. You have never given up on anything in your life. Not even on me. So don’t you dare start now._

* * *

At the end of the world, there’s no one she would rather be dying beside.

* * *

_No, no, I’ve got you. I’m not letting go. Don’t you get it? I love you. I always have. So please, just this once—stay!_

* * *

She can feel the hum of electricity buzzing in the air as the walls collapse in around them, and after the hundreds of times she’s felt lightning coursing through her veins, she knows she’s not going to survive the strength and force of this one. 

She buries her face in Adora’s chest and breathes her in for what she knows is going to be the last time.

* * *

_Stay._

* * *

Adora’s smile has never looked more beautiful than it does now—warm and awed and tender and _alive_.

* * *

_I love you, too._

* * *

The celebration lasts late in to the night, people expressing their relief at narrowly avoiding the apocalypse through countless parties that have sprung up all over Etheria, but Catra and Adora disappeared before the last moon had even dipped before the horizon.

There will be time to be exalted as the heroes they have become, even if neither of them truly believe they deserve that title. There will be time to rebuilt everything that has been lost in decades of war, villages and trust and relationships alike. There will be time to explore the universe with their best friends, to bring magic back to planets not as lucky as Etheria was.

But for now, they curl up in a sleeping roll that’s only slightly charred by the near apocalypse. The thick scent of smoke drifts towards them on the slight night breeze, from burning villages and bon fires, from devastation and celebration—but it smells of something new, the way the ash after a forest fire smells of both death and new life.

They aren’t all that far from the nearest celebration, the one they left Bow and Glimmer and the rest of the Rebellion leaders at, though the sound of music and singing and dancing is muffled through the forest that surrounds the Rebellion’s hideout.

But they’re too caught up in each other to notice, legs tangled and chests rising and falling on a synchronized loop, hands latching on to warm skin under a scratchy blanket and lips softly touching and exploring despite the way their blinks get slower and slower as well-deserved sleep slowly stakes its claim over both of them.

There will be time to talk about everything that’s happened between them later—to work through all of the betrayal and heartbreak and resentment still lingering in the air, to work through the complicated grief they both struggle with regarding their mentor’s death, to work on self-sacrificial tendencies and habits of running when things get hard, to work through all of the issues that don’t magically disappear as soon as the world is saved.

But there will be time for that later.

For now, they can rest, and they can sleep, and they can love, and they can start to heal.

_Together_. 

**Author's Note:**

> Not so Fun Fact: This fic originally spawned from me realizing how many times Catra has been electrocuted—which is truly a concerning amount—and then got completely out of hand.


End file.
